


Teach Me

by AngelTheFourthDragneelBrother



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014), Coco (2017)
Genre: Angst, Bilingual, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hiro Hamada:Saltier then the Dead Sea, Hiro has some fucking demons, Hiro needs sleep, I'll add more tags later, It's past midnight and I need sleep, Like seriously don't hold your breath, M/M, Mentions of Death, Miguel is sin, Miguel's hips are SIN, Panic Attacks, Slow Burn, The underage warning is barely necessary but i'm putting it to be safe, This story is bilingual?, This was written in a crazy caffine fueled rush, currently on hiatus, forced vacation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-05-21 16:39:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14919026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelTheFourthDragneelBrother/pseuds/AngelTheFourthDragneelBrother
Summary: Have you ever been so over worked and stressed that your friends force you into nerd rehab by forcing you to take a vacation? No? Then read a story where Hiro is thrown into just that situation, following his friends brilliant(?) 'suggestion' to go to Santa Cecilia during spring break. There he is greeted by a loving family that seems too perfect-except for Miguel who Hiro quite literally bumps into.A vacation that he does not want to be on, a family that he's not sure what to make of, a language barrier, a wannabe rockstar (Hiro's words not mine) and a stupid dog that will not leave him alone. Someone teach Hiro how to survive this vacation to Hell.





	1. Chapter 1

   Okay first off this was definitely inspired by an artist on that I follow on Facebook Ureshi-San. I mean I recently found their art and just went through most-if not all of their Hiro and Miguel comics and I momentarily died ecause holy fuck their art is just gorgeous. It's out of this world, please check them out. I can't gush about their work without making a utter fool of myself so just see for yourself. https://www.facebook.com/ureshisanuniverse0/   

   There was an idea that I took from their comics and that would be Hiro making his own translator. While I said that the comic inspired me it does not mean that I'm just giving you a written version of their work, hence why I'm stating right now that the translator is the only thing I *willingly* took from their comic (I use the word willingly loosely because there's always a chance that a coincidence happens and I accidentally have something that their comic includes)   
  

   Now that that's out of the way I would like to state something else, I've read some fanfictions of Miguel and Hiro and so far they've been strictly in Spanish or strictly in English with one or two curse words in English. I (like a dumbass) decided to write this story in a more bilingual manner. The family speaks Spanish, Miguel speaks Spanish, anyone who is not Hiro (or his friends) speaks Spanish. The descriptions and everything else is in English but the family's dialogue is in Spanish. Now, I currently have it formatted in this manner: " _The dialogue in Spanish will be like this, slanted."_ and next to it 'The English translation will be here in between these 'line' thingies' whose name I cannot remember and it's midnight so I am NOT looking that up right now. If you are bilingual then it might tick you off just a tad since it's like reading the same thing twice and for that I apologize. If you have any suggestions on how to improve where I put the translations please let me know and I'll take it into consideration. 

 

   I was going to have this written out on the top notes of the story but I didn't want to risk some people not reading it, and hey, maybe some people skipped it anyway but I tried. While I speak Spanish it is Puerto Rican Spanish NOT Mexican Spanish, they are different dialects so some words have different meanings. Example, 'cake' in Puerto Rican Spanish means cake while the word for cake in Puerto Rico means a woman's genitalia in Mexican Spanish. I hope that makes sense? To summarize, some words in Puerto Rican Spanish have a different meaning in other forms of Spanish, so I've tried to keep that in mind and I apologize for any errors that there may be. Hiro is nineteen and Miguel is seventeen so slight underage? Then again it is slow burn (NOT SAYING WE'RE GUNNA HAVE TO WAIT A WHOLE YEAR) Ah and the title is me trying to be clever. The title is Teach Me and then the chapter will be what's being taught? For example, let's say the title of the chapter is How to Dance. Then with the title of the story it would be "Teach Me How to Dance" ~~I can't believe I just explained the title of this shit. I'm a fucking dork.~~

 

   So without further adieu (or pointless explanations from the author) here's the crappy story of the boy with next to no family and the one with more than enough to spare. 


	2. How To Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I am not stressed! Working calms me!" Hiro argued.  
> "Yes, you seem very calm." Wasabi said dryly.  
> "We just don't want you to have another burnout, little man." Fred said calmly, holding his hands up in surrender. "Like Honey said, we just want to help."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I strongly believe that Tadashi would be the one to keep Hiro from overworking himself. And now that Tadashi is gone...  
> (In case you skipped the introduction chapter, Hiro is nineteen and Miguel is seventeen here, basically five years into the future.)

   Hiro Hamada: Well-known genius in San Fransokyo, if not the world. Inventor of the microbot, leader of the team Big Hero 6, inventor, the list went on and on. He had done all this and more when he was barely into his teen years, and now, already a 'proper' adult of nineteen years, he had accomplished so much more, both by his own achievements and with the help of his friends and Aunt Cass. Hiro knew that his life was headed in the direction that he had always wanted to-the one that Tadashi had always tried pushing him into-and had succeeded in doing so in the end. Hiro knew that he was living the dream. Hiro knew that he was in the top of his game. But there was one thing that he didn't know.

   "Why do I have to go on some dumb vacation?!" He demanded, crossing his arms as if the wreck of a work station around him didn't provide the answer. The team was currently in Hiro's garage where countless papers and blueprints littered the area, as well as a hazardous amount of spare parts and unfinished projects.

   "Hiro, there's plenty of time to bust your big brain open when school is in session." Gogo pointed out, puncturing her point with a snap of her ever present bubblegum.

  "It's not good for you to be working all the time, little man." Fred agreed, even if the term 'little man' didn't quite suit Hiro anymore.

   Wasabi, who was silently freaking at the mess of a garage, nodded as well. "Yeah, this-consider this an intervention on your inventions." He was itching to organize this so called workspace.

   "You know we worry about you Hiro, we only want to help." Honey Lemon said, speaking as if she were explaining to a little kid why he couldn't have cookies for lunch - at least that's what it sounded like to Hiro.

   "I'm fine! Seriously, I'm fine!" He insisted, running a hand through his hair only to get his hand momentarily trapped in a neat of tangles and knots.

   “Okay, let's see." Gogo deadpanned, hands on her hips before loudly declaring "Ow!"

   There was beeping from the charge station as Baymax inflated himself while Hiro groaned and slammed his head down onto his keyboard. Did she seriously have to bring Baymax into this? So what if he wanted to stay up a little later than he should a few times to finish a project he was working on. So what if he had fallen asleep in the garage a few times. So what if his sleeping and eating habits hadn't been the best as of late. He was still alive wasn't he?

   "I heard a sound of distress, how many I be of service?" Baymax inquired, looking the group to see what the problem was.

   "Baymax, please do a scan on Hiro." Gogo requested.

   "No! No scan!" Hiro protested, he did not need his robot helping Gogo to prove a point.

   "Scan complete." Baymax announced not even two seconds later with a nod of his head.

   "You have got to be kidding me." He groaned, face still smushed into the keyboard.

    "Baymax, if you would mind telling us the results, summarized please." Gogo continued. Hiro just grunted in protest, not even bothering with words as they would be futile.

    "Hiro's hormones are not as balanced as they were the last time that he was scanned, there is a slight deficiency of dehydroepiandrosterone as well as other natural body made chemicals, and an increase of cortisol and other potentially harmful hormones." Baymax relayed.

   "Diagnosis?" Gogo prompted.

   "Stress." Well at least the answer wasn't puberty this time. Baymax wasn't sure if stress viewed as something from the list of physical or bodily injuries that Tadashi had originally programmed him with or as something that would fall into the mental list that he had added shortly after being awoken by Hiro. He supposed that it was both; that they went hand in hand, the mental would affect the physical. Baymax could not have that.

   "I am not stressed! Working calms me!" Hiro argued.

   "Yes, you seem very calm." Wasabi said dryly.

   "We just don't want you to have another burnout, little man." Fred said calmly, holding his hands up in surrender. "Like Honey said, we just want to help."

   "And sending me to some place I've never heard of is how to do it?" Hiro deadpanned, lifting his head from the keyboard to give him an unamused look.

   "If it gets you the fuck out of the garage then yes, we’re sending you to nerd rehab." Gogo stated matter of factly. Her filter had been abandoned when Hiro had reached a certain age.

   "Besides, who wouldn't love to travel? I've already contacted my extended family and they would love to take you in!" Honey Lemon exclaimed.

   Hiro bit back the 'You make it sound like I'm a stray dog' that he was going to say. He sighed and facepalmed, he knew that he his crankiness was at least partly due to lack of sleep but it didn't mean he would admit it.

   "We already talked it over with Aunt Cass and she agreed that a change of scenery would be good for you." Wasabi coaxed.

   "I concur that a change of location could be one possible treatment." Baymax chimed. Hiro glared at the robot. Traitor.

   He looked at the group and sighed heavily in defeat. He wasn't going to be able to worm his way out of this one was he? But come on! He was trying to work out the different properties of the wormhole that the portal had opened all those years ago-well it wasn't the first time that he'd experimented with different theories about it but he was sure that he had found new evidence! Well, at least the only kind of evidence that he could get without opening said wormhole again, which was entirely out of the question. But he had hit a dead end, repeatedly. Night after night. Then again-maybe the forced exile (what he was choosing to call this supposed 'vacation') could give him the new angle he needed.

    "Where am I being sent off to again?" Hiro asked. Santa Claus something, right?

 

   Hiro's leg bounced uneasily as he looked out the plane window, glancing at the view below him, towns and cities all clustered together, impossible to tell what was what from how high up he was. He wasn't afraid of flying, oh no, he was more than used to flying because of Baymax, but he would admit that he was just a tad anxious. Okay scratch that, his nerves were going haywire. What had he been thinking?! Then again he hadn't really been thinking, he had just been nodding and half listening to what the others were saying in the nearly death like trance that he had been in when they had explained the details to him. He had been completely calm as he packed, not worrying about what could go wrong at all. He had been completely calm as he made one last invention-techincally it was a prototype but still. He fiddled with it in his hands, turning it this way and that, it was small, about the size and shape of an Ipod. It was supposed to be an automatic translator but he wasn't sure if it worked. He had tested it-once-with Honey Lemon, he had her speak some phrases in Spanish into it and it would appear in English on the screen. She has said that the translation had been correct but he hadn't had the chance to test the reverse translation, where he would speak-or type- what he wanted to say and it would say it in Spanish. Once again, for about the millionth time since he stepped into the plane, Hiro was asking himself, what had he been thinking?!

   Actually no, what had his friends and Aunt Cass had been thinking, just having him go off to some foreign place where he didn't know so much as the language. Hadn't they ever seen Taken?! Or any kind of police movie?! He was going to be the poor sap who got either kidnapped, murdered or sold within the first ten minutes of the movie! The only thing that was pushing away those thoughts was the fact that he had brought Baymax along with him, he was safely packed away in his charge station and Hiro had managed to pass it off as carry on. He wasn't sure what the rule was for having robots on a plane so he preferred to not go through the hassle. Hiro could only pray that no one stunned their toe and said ow. His friends had forbid him from bringing Baymax's armour though, but he had brought it anyway. As well as some tools from the garage. Hey, Aunt Cass was always telling him to be careful, this was his way of being careful.

   He had his headphones on for two reasons. One, his ears would always get clogged up when he flew in an airplane and would cause him some ear pain later on so it was a way to prevent that. Two, he had downloaded some Spanish lessons so that way he wouldn't be completely reluctant on his makeshift translator, because come on, this was Honey's family, he wanted to make a good impression. There was actually a third reason as well, it made people a lot less likely to talk to him. He glanced at his watch, they were barely even half way into the flight. Hiro had considered sleeping through the flight but it would have defeated the purpose of the lessons that he had downloaded. Plus the person sitting next to him was apparently part elephant, if their snoring was anything to go by.

   The flight attendant came around and Hiro thanked every single god out there that there were gummy bears. He wouldn't have survived any other way.

  "It's a pleasure to meet you, es un placer conocierte" Hiro mumbled to himself through a mouthful of gummy bears.

  Two hours later and Hiro was still going over verb tenses. So. Many. Verb. Tenses. Oh god his head was going to explode. This was how he was going to die, from an overload of information. What a sense of irony that would have. He was also freaking out further. He didn't know very much about Honey Lemon's family. She had warned him to not say no when offered more food from Mama Elena, he had no clue why. But apparently her family was very friendly, even if they had been very strict about music for some reason until some time ago. Hiro had no clue what the story behind that was and he didn't plan on asking. What if they ended up hating him?! What if Honey ended up hating him because her family ended up hating him? No, no, Honey wasn't like that. It would be fine.

   Only an hour left until they landed and Hiro was currently freaking that no, it would not be fine. What. Had. His. Friends. Been. Thinking? What had Cass been thinking?! She knew as much about the family as Hiro did-well she probably knew more considering that she had informed him that there was a boy around his age. What if he wouldn't be able to find the family at the airport? Oh hell what if he ended up lost? What was the family called again? River? No wait, Rivera. The Rivera family. He remembered Honey Lemon say that the family owned a-what had it been? Right, a shoe store, that the family made shoes. Except for that kid that was around his age, he was an aspiring musician or something. So in about sixty minutes, more or less, he would be with a family of shoe makers and a wannabe rockstar. Fantastic.

   So far no one on the flight had uttered the word 'ow' or any other pained noise and as Hiro was exiting the plane he prayed that it would stay that it would stay that way. He looked around as he made his way from the tunnel to the gate. People crowded him on either side and he shuffled slowly along, clutching Baymax's case closer to him. Hiro pulled out his phone and pulled up the picture that Honey had sent him of what Rivera family looked like. Okay, it should be easy enough to spot them. And even if he didn't see them, the family would be sure to see him with how he stuck out like a sore thumb; it was obvious to see who in the crowd of people were tourists and who were locals. Hiro, without a doubt, fell into the tourist category.

   He got to the gate and looked around the airport, so far there weren't any major differences from home, there weren't any brightly coloured ads like there was in the San Fransokyo airport but there was a wide array of fast-food courts like the other airport. Hiro didn't get a chance to look around for long because right there by the gate a group of people was waiting, the Rivera family if the large paper with 'Hiro' written on It was anything to go by.

   " _Oye! Mira, allí esta!_ " 'Hey! Look, there he is!' One of them informed the group who immediately waved him over like they had known him all his life.

   Hiro blinked a few times in surprise. He had only been expecting only one or two people. Not that he was complaining!-Just-it was a surprise how many people there was, especially with how they were all smiling so brightly and how...friendly they seemed; it was also a touch frightening to him in a strange way. They had even made him a sign, to make sure that he wouldn't get lost. He pushed away the funny feeling that gave him and adjusted his hold on Baymax's carrier before walking over to the group. He nearly forgot about his translator and fished that out of his pocket, turning it on.

   " _Benvienido Hiro, ¿como fue tu viaje?_ " One of the men-oh-Hiro saw that they had gone through the trouble of wearing little name tags as well-Enrique Rivera said.

   Honey Lemon had already told him with the phrase with him several times before he left 'Welcome Hiro, how was your flight?'

   He had practiced his response with Honey but tripped over the words a bit either way. " _Bien, gracias, es un placer conocerlos_." He cringed at how heavily accented his words came out even though the family smiled in response. 'Good, thank you, it's a pleasure to meet you all.'

   " _Honey nos ha contado mucho de ti. No te preocupes, se que lo pasaras bien._ " The woman besides Enrique, Luisa, reassured. She had a young girl with pigtails half hiding behind her.

   Hiro had to check his translator for that one. The screen read 'Honey has told us a lot about you. Don't worry, I know you'll have a great time here.' He gave a slightly awkward smile in response, responding with a short " _Gracias._ " His brain failed to supply him with more. He waved to the little girl who hid further into her mother's skirt. Hiro inwardly cringed. That could have gone better.

   " _No te preocupes, Socorro es muy timida, no es tu culpa_." Luisa explained. Hiro looked at the translator screen once more. 'Don't worry, Socorro is very shy, it's not your fault.' The awkwardness in his smile faded to something warmer.

   " _Dejame presentarte a la familia_ ," Enrique began. 'Allow me to introduce you to the family.' " _Ella es mi esposa, Luisa, ella es Abuelita Ellena_ \- 'This is my wife, Luisa, she is Grandma Elena-"

   " _¡Ay dios mio! Él esta más flaco que Miguelito!_ ” Abuelita cut in, clicking her tongue. 'Oh my god! He's even thinner than Miguelito!'

   " _Mamá, por favor, no interumpas_." 'Mamá, please, don't interrupt.' Enrique said before continuing his introductions. " _Él se llama papa Franco, Tio Berto y su hijo Abel y-¡oye! ¿¡Donde se fue Miguel!?_ 'His name is papa Franco, Uncle Berto and his son Abel and-hey! Where did Miguel go!?"

   " _Él dijo que iba a chequer al perro, Dante estaba aullando en la entrada del aeropuerto_." 'He said that he was going to check on the dog, Dante was howling at the airport entrance.' Abel said.

 _"¡Yo sabia que ese perro solo iba a traer problemas! ¡Te lo dije! ¡Nunca confies en un perro de la calle!"_ 'I knew that dog would only bring trouble! I told you! Never trust a street dog!' Abuelita Elena huffed. Yeah, it wasn’t as if she could be seen slipping the dog treats from time to time.

   Before Hiro could ask who was Miguel or Dante was-or what was going on for that matter, everyone had been speaking faster than his device could translate. There was a hoard of shouting, people getting knocked off their feet and a young man shouting commands as he chased after the oddest dog that Hiro had ever seen. The dog was completely ignoring said commands as it weaves through the crowd.

 _"¡Dante no!”_ The man yelled, half commanding, half desperate. _"¡Regresa! ¡Ahora! ¡Para! Dante, por favor, te lo suplico!"_ 'Come back here! Now! Stop! Dante please, I'm begging you!' He shouted, along with a few rushed _"¡Lo siento!"_ 's as the dog bowled more people over.

   The hairless mutt sniffed at the ground, pausing long enough for the young man to make a dive for him, only to miss as the dog started running once more. He fell rather ungracefully to the ground. Hiro stifled his laughter behind his hand. "W-who is that?!" He asked between giggles.

 _"¡Miguel!"_ The whole family shouted at once. Oh.

   Dante, sniffed at the ground like mad before looking up at the family and breaking into a sprint toward them. Miguel picked himself up off the ground and ran after the dog. Dante was less than ten feet from the family when Miguel managed to scoop him off the ground, giving a victory whoop-only to have it turn into a scream when he crashed right into Hiro, having picked up too much momentum to stop in time. Hiro barely got a chance to shout before they fell, a mass of limbs and one smelly dog.

   Hiro groaned, clutching his head with one hand and glaring at the two lumps sprawled across him.

   _"¡Lo tengo!"_ Miguel laughed victoriously, clutching the dog close to him and apparently not even noticing that he had run Hiro over. He sat up and clutched his side, hissing out an 'ow'.

   Hiro's eyes went comically wide. Oh no. Baymax's carrier, which had slammed beautifully into both his and Miguel's side blinked to life as the robot inflated itself. The only good thing was that Baymax's activation put some space between Hiro and the boy and his smelly dog.

   "Oh come on." Hiro groaned, sitting up and holding his own side which was no doubt going to bruise. He glanced around, not really surprised when he saw that everyone nearby was staring at the robot in shock. It

   "Hello, I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion, I heard a sound of distress. What seems to be the problem?" The robot introduced himself politely.

 _"¿¡Que rayos es eso!?"_ Abuelita Elena shouted. 'What the devil is that?!'

 _"¡Que maravilla!"_ Miguel gasped, almost losing his hold on Dante. ‘That’s amazing!’

   Hiro knew that Honey Lemon had no doubt told her family about the team's adventures and about Baymax but by the reaction of the family it was clear that they had written it off as either fantasy or exaggeration.

   Baymax tilted his head to the side, examining the new people. There was a faint whir and a click. _"Hola, yo soy Baymax, tu ayudante personal de la salud. Eschuche un alerta de aydua. ¿Me pudes decir cual es el problema?"_ He had translated his greeting.

   Seriously?! His own robot was better at Spanish than he was?! "Baymax, there is no problem just-!"

 _"Ah, ¿me lastime las costillas?"_ Miguel said slowly. His cousin, Honey, had told him of this nurse robot but he hadn't expected Hiro to bring it. This was impressive, even to one who had travelled to the land of the dead and had seen Alebrijes.

 _"En una escala del uno al diez, ¿cuanto seria su dolor?"_ Baymax asked. 'On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?'

   "Baymax, he's satisfied-"

 _"No, no es tan doloroso, solamente es un uno ó un cero."_ Miguel reassured, cutting off Hiro who was now fuming.

   "Would you tell Baymax that you're satisfied with your care?!" He shouted at Miguel.

   _"¡Oye, tu, gringo!"_ Just when Hiro thought that things couldn't get worse some security guards were rushing their way. _"¡Detente alli!"_ Hiro did know what they were saying but their tone had him putting his hands up. He heard Miguel snort beside him and glared at him. Miguel just shrugged innocently, giving him a one dimpled smile.

 

Over an hour later Hiro was finally released from the airport security. Luckily they had allowed for him to call Honey and she was able to explain everything a thousand times better than Hiro could even dream to. Although they hadn't allowed for Baymax to be brought into the office with him. Honey Lemon had explained exactly what Baymax was, as well as who Hiro was from over the phone. It turned out that one of the guards knew about him-well at least he had a niece that did. It had made it a lot easier to clear the whole matter up. Even if the guard had made him sign an autograph. Yeah sure man, arrest me then ask for my signature, now I’m officially a celebrity Hiro thought sarcastically.

    But while he was now officially out of custody of the airport security he had other problems to take care of. Namely his Aunt Cass who had heard from Honey wat had happened. She had ranted and lectured him for five minutes, asked him if he was alright for another ten and then started arguing with him for not calling as soon as the plane had touched down.

   "Cass, I'm fine, really." Hiro reassured his aunt over the phone who, upon him no calling immediately after landing, had begun to worry. Sure, she was used to Hiro sneaking off to places, or being in places that he shouldn't, but now he was actually in a place that she had approved, plus she couldn't easily get to said location.

   "Are you sure? You haven't been there for a day and you already got arrested!" She gave a tired laugh. "I swear if I have to bail you out of jail while you're on vacation then you're on litter box duty for the rest of your life."

   "It wasn't my fault! It was the kid who was chasing after his stupid dog and slammed into me." He reminded, having already told her the story.

   "Well no harm no foul right?" She said, he could practically hear her shrug.

   Hiro saw the family waiting for him right outside of the airport, Baymax was with them, thankfully. The robot had a dreadful habit of wandering off. The older woman, Abuelita Elena, was looking over the robot skeptically, the adults in the group had pretty much gotten used to him by the looks of thing. The little girl was poking Baymax in the stomach and giggling like mad, running around him and laughing as he also moved in a circle to keep an eye on her. And Miguel was reacting to Baymax much like Hiro had upon first seeing the robot; he was looking him over, poking here and there but also talking to Baymax as he did so, grinning widely. Miguel's overgrown rat was running in between his owners legs and barking, demanding attention. Hiro automatically felt his blood boil upon seeing Miguel. Stupid boy with his stupid dog that had stupidly gotten him held up by security.

   "Hiro?" Aunt Cass questioned when he didn't answer.

   "What? Oh, yeah, right. Listen, I'll call you later, I have to uh get my luggage." He said, even though Abel had picked up his luggage for him. Hiro gripped Baymax's empty charge station tighter.

   "Alright Hiro, remember to be polite, I love you, talk to you later." Cass said

   "I will, love you too, bye." He hung up the call, squared his shoulders and made his way outside and to the Riveras. "Baymax, I am satisfied with my care." He announced, cutting off whatever Miguel had been telling Baymax.

   Baymax turned to Hiro and tilted his head in that birdlike manner that he would. "I can only be deactivated by the person who originally said ow." He informed him.

   "What?" Hiro barely kept himself from screaming. He had first impressions to think of after all. Dante barked and tried climbing up Hiro, he shooed the dog away.

 _"¿Hiro, estas bien? ¿Los guardias, no te dieron mucho problemas verda?"_ Luisa inquired, obviously concerned. 'Hiro, are you alright? The guards didn't give you too much trouble did they?' Hiro just nodded, he felt the beginning of a headache.

 _"¡Hiro! ¡Este robot es espectacular! ¿Es verda que tu lo inventaste? ¿Como lo creeaste? ¡Ah! ¡Y Baymax me estaba contando de como él puede volar! ¡Eso-!"_ Miguel said excitedly, practically bouncing up and down. 'Hiro! This robot is spectacular! Is it true that you invented him? How did you make him? Oh! And Baymax was telling me how he can fly! Is that-'

   "Tell Baymax that you're satisfied with your care." Hiro cut in, tapping his foot impatiently.

 _"¿Que?"_ Miguel asked, clearly confused. He had just been complimenting Baymax and his design, why was Hiro cross?

   Hiro's forehead furrowed as he dug the translator out of his pocket and quickly typed in what he had said, reading the translated version aloud rather than having the machine say the translation on its own. Hopefully the clear irritation on his voice showed. Dante was still trying to jump on him and Hiro just prayed that the dog wouldn't eat the machine. He pushed the dog off him once more.

 _"Porque?"_ He questioned, crossing his arms. Two could play at that game and honestly? Miguel wasn't exactly caring for Hiro's attitude.

   He clenched his jaw shut, trying to muffle the groan of frustration that threatened to escape him. He pointed to Baymax, then to the charge port that he was carrying, hoping that it got the message across this time around.

 _"¡Miguel! ¡No seas tan imprudente y haga lo que Hiro te dice!_ Enrique scolded. 'Miguel! Don't be so rude and do what Hiro tells you!'

   Now it was Miguel turn to groan. The stupid gringo with tumbleweed hair now had a smug look on his face that had Miguel glaring at him as he gritted out _"Estoy satisficho con mi cuidado."_

   Hiro set the charge station on the floor and Baymax waddled over to it. The robot gave Socorro a wave before he shrunk down into the charger. Hiro made sure it was properly closed before picking it up. Dante kept barking at Hiro and jumping him, almost knocking him off balance now that he couldn't bat him away since he had his hands full with the carrier. Miguel got a bit of petty revenge by not calling the dog over.

 _"¿Tienes todas tus cosas verda?"_ Papa Franco asked. The translator screen read 'You have all of your things right?' Hiro nodded. _"Pues, vamonos a la casa, los demas nos estan esperando."_ He continued. 'Well, let's go home, the others are waiting for us.'

   'The others' Hiro's mind echoed. He had nearly forgotten that the eight people that had come to pick him up wasn't the whole family. Why had he agreed to this vacation? Once more Hiro nodded.

   With there being so many people Hiro had expected there to be two cars. There weren't. There was only one car, a mini van so there was an ample amount of seats but the outside definitely left something to be desired. It looked ancient, the bumper more rust than anything. Hiro would have compared the colour to that of a pumpkin but the colour was more like something that a pumpkin had vomited. At first he thought that it was dirty but no, upon closer inspection it had obviously been washed recently, meaning that somebody had actually chosen a car of such an unappealing shade. There was a rather nasty dent on the right side as well as at least a dozen more along the bumper. They loaded his suitcase in the trunk and offered to load Baymax's charge station in as well but Hiro declined, saying that he would just keep his friend on his lap during the ride.

 

   Enrique and Luisa were seated in the front seat with Luisa driving, in the second row sat Abuelita Elena, Papa Franco and Tio Berto which left Abel, Socorro, Miguel and Hiro in the back all crowded together. Socorro was seated in Abel's lap for more room. Miguel sat between Abel and Hiro. Dante was in the trunk with the suitcase (people don't worry it's one of those trunks you can reach from the backseat, you know? Those open ones?)

   They started the drive back home and it only took ten minutes for Miguel to start fidgeting in his seat, trying to get comfortable. If Hiro had agreed to leave Baymax in the trunk then there would be more room but nooo, the boy genius had to have his previous robot with him. Miguel would have said 'ow' if doing so wouldn't result in the inflation of the robot squishing him as well. So he settled for subtly elbowing Hiro's side, a silent request for more space.

   The gringo with tumbleweed hair spared him a split second glare before elbowing him back. Miguel stiffled a hiss since Hiro was seated on the side that Miguel had injured when he had crashed into the boy and the bot. Sure, Baymax had already applied ice to the area-actually the bot had just chilled his hand and applied it his side, but his ribs were still tender.

   " _Muevete_." Miguel whispered harshly, enforcing the demand with another subtle shove.

   "No, you move." Hiro argued, whispering and shoving as well, although he doubted that he had to whisper with how loud the music that blasted from the radio was.

   Miguel clenched his jaw. Why did this stupid boy have to be so damn stubborn? _"Muevete."_ Miguel repeated, pronouncing each syllable slowly and clearly.

   "I heard you the first time, dummy." Hiro huffed, shoving him again. "Now I'll repeat myself 'No. You. Move.'"

   Dante poked his head out from the trunk and licked Hiro from neck to forehead, making his messy pony tailed hair stick up and caused him to groan in disgust. Miguel didn't even bother to hide his laughter.

   Their shoving match went on the whole ride and while Hiro didn't appear to be the most muscular guy his bony arms did hurt, even if Miguel would never admit it. While Miguel was two years younger than Hiro, he was taller and of a sturdier build so even though Hiro's bony elbows hurt his side, Miguel had the size and strength to return and block the blows. The toughest part was exchanging their shoves without alerting the Riveras of their petty fighting and without saying 'ow' since doing so would be disastrous.

   Finally, finally they reached the house and Hiro all but jumped out of the car; not before giving Miguel one last elbow to the ribs of course. Stupid wannabe rockstar.

   Hiro hadn't expected to be so grateful that he had brought Baymax but at this point he was fairly certain that his friend would be the only thing to keep him sane during this vacation to hell. _"¡Oye! ¿¡Que tu tiene guardado aqui!? ¡Pesa un monton!"_ Tio Berto asked, grunting as he lugged out Hiro's suitcase from the trunk. Dante leapt from the trunk and ran around Miguel before going to Hiro.

   He quickly set down the charge station and pulled out his translator, fingers flying over the buttons. He had the machine speak for him this time instead of reading the translation. _"Por favor, ten quidado con eso."_ The automated voice said. 'Please, be careful with that.' Hiro took the suitcase from the man and gave him an awkward smile. He couldn't exactly say that he had some spare parts and tools hidden in there among his clothes. How airport security had missed those things was beyond him.

   Dante had sat on the charge station and Hiro quickly shooed him off, wiping off the case in disgust. This was why cats are so much better. Mochi wouldn't waste his energy by jumping on him nonstop. Mochi wouldn't cause a scene at the airport. Mochi wouldn't cause for some wannabe rockstar to crash into him. No, cats would just lie all calm like, getting up for food or cuddles but not much else. Cats wouldn't unnecessarily bother him. But hairless dogs? Apparently those had a vendetta against him.

   Hiro stifled a yawn; he had been up for hours and having to work out that while situation with security had drained him. Not to mention the insufferable car ride. Now that he was getting a chance to breathe he was realizing just how exhausted he was.

 _"¿Hiro?"_ Luisa questioned. Hiro looked at her upon mention of his name. _"¿Estas bien?"_ 'Are you alright?' The boy looked even smaller now, struggling to keep his eyes open. Honey had already explained the situation to her and as a mother she was obviously worried about him. The reason of the vacation wasn't the only thing that Honey had explained to her, and now, when Hiro had his guard down, it was easy to see how haunted he looked, how utterly exhausted but in a way that didn’t come solely from being tired.

   The boy was only nineteen for heaven's sake, he shouldn't be how he was right now. He was young, he deserved to act like it. He shouldn't have had to grow up as quickly as he had been forced to. It broke her heart to think about. Such a young man already carrying so much on his shoulders. If such a thing had happened to Miguel or Socorro…she couldn’t stand even thinking of such a thing.

 _"Si, estoy bien, solamente tengo sueño."_ The machine spoke. 'Yes, I'm alright, I'm just tired.' Hiro didn't know if it was because he was sleepy but the way that Luisa worried despite not having known him for long made him feel funny, made him feel a sort of longing. Had his own mother been like that? Fussing over Tadashi and him? Smiling and worrying and explaining and telling him that it was okay. Cass was like that yes, but he had been robbed of having those memories of his own mother, and to have someone else's give them to him so freely? It-the feeling felt misplaced, foreign.

   Two young boys, around seven or eight burst out of the house, laughing as they charged at Tio Berto, nearly knocking him off his feet. Berto smiled widely as he hugged them both, saying something about 'where was their mother' or something along those lines that Hiro didn't catch.

 _"Ellos son Benny y Manny, los otro dos hijos de Berto."_ Luisa explained to Hiro. 'Those are Benny and Manny, the other two sons of Berto.' _"Tu pudes conocer el resto del familia horita, yo les explico que tu estabas cansado."_ 'You can meet the rest of the family later, I'll explain that you were tired.' _"¡Miguel!"_

   Miguel, who had pried Benny and Manny off of Berto and was currently chasing them around the yard, making monster noises and laughing as the two boys giggled and squealed as they ran away, looked over to his mother. _"¿Que?"_ He asked as he caught Manny, tickling the kid into a laughing mess.

 _"Enseña Hiro donde se va a quedar, él va a discansar por un rato."_ She said. 'Show Hiro where he'll be staying, he's going to rest for a bit.' Miguel was clearly not pleased by the request but nodded nonetheless. Manny escaped his grasp and both he and his twin brother went over, looking at Hiro curiously.

 _"¿Quien eres?"_ Benny asked, speaking first. ‘Who are you?’

 _"¿De donde vienes?"_ Manny continued. ‘Where did you come from?’

 _"Eres un amigo de Miguel?_ ” 'Are you a friend of Miguel's?'

   "Uh..." Hiro had no clue what to answer. He started typing when Miguel stepped in to 'save' the day. _"Él es un gringo con pelo de un chinchilla que estaba en el lado de la calle porque alguien lo abandono alli y nos sentemos mal por él asique los llevamos para'ca. Él no es mi amigo, es mi nueva mascota."_ Miguel said with a smug grin. The twins burst into fits of laughter.

   'He's an American with chinchilla hair that was left in the side of the road because someone had abandoned him there and we felt bad for him so we brought him here. He is not my friend, he is my new pet.'

 _"¡Miguel! ¡No hables de la visita hací!"_ Enrique scolded. Miguel smiled innocently, grabbing Hiro's suitcase and wheeled it to the house, not waiting to see if Hiro was following. Hiro quickly picked up the case and followed after him. Dante tailed both of them.

 _"Adios gringo con pelo de chinchilla."_ Benny giggled, waving goodbye. Manny laughed beside him, unsuccessfully hiding it behind his hand.

 _"¡Mira! ¡No digas eso!"_ Enrique reprimanded. The twins squealed and ran away to avoid punishment.

   Miguel inwardly groaned as they got closer to the room sure, he had agreed to let the guest sleep in his room but that was before he had actually gotten to know the stuck up hijo de puta that he was going to be stuck sharing a room with. Some of his other family members like Tia Gloria, Tia Carmen, and prima Rosa momentarily halted them from getting to the room, Miguel's aunts cooed over how nice it was of him to help and made teasing little comments toward Hiro about how skinny he was or the length of his hair and how a haircut wouldn't do him wrong. His cousin Rosa knew who Hiro was (surprisingly) and burst off asking him a number of questions about what had he been working on recently, was a certain story about him true and how cute her friend Maria thought he was.

   Miguel snorted and his laughter behind his hand. Hiro had already looked frightened by them at the airport but now with these new people he looked absolutely petrified. His shoulders were hunched together, he held the carrier tighter still and he just overall looked like he wanted to disappear, he even stopped shooting Dante away. Miguel was able to get his aunts and cousin to leave them be after a few minutes (usually he would be able to escape from his family members in under a minute but he wasn't in any rush) and pulled on the sleeve of Hiro's hoodie, clicking his tongue "Poraqui Chinchilla." He guided, leading Hiro to his room.

   He opened the door, he had originally been planning to do so with a big flourish but that was before he had met Hiro, and just gestured to whole room in general. "Esto es mi cuarto." _'This_ is my room.' He pointed to the twin bed in the wood frame _. "Eso es mi cama."_ 'That's my bed' He pointed to the air mattress against the wall opposite to it. _"Y eso es donde tu te vas a dormir."_ 'And that's where you'll sleep.'

   Hiro could not believe his misfortune, out of all the rooms, out of all the places that he could be staying, it had to be the wannabe rockstar's room. He could tell that Miguel was not happy with the arrangement either. Whatever. Hiro could argue about it later, right now he wanted to sleep. Miguel didn't wait for Hiro to say anything, he just left the suitcase in the room and left, closing the door after him.

   That was perfectly fine with Hiro, he didn't want to spend any more time with the wannabe rockstar than he had to. He looked around the room. At least it was clean.

   There was a dresser in one corner, Miguel's bed in the other, a small wooden desk next to the air mattress, Hiro could see himself using that to work later. Once he cleared the radio and other items off it of course. There was one window in between the two beds where the bright sun came in through. It was barely the afternoon but it was incredibly hot. Humid. And hot. Hiro stripped off his hoodie, leaving himself in his t-shirt and undid his hair. Even as he had gotten older his style hadn't changed and still consisted of mostly hoodies, t-shirts and cargo pants. Although he was now exceedingly grateful that Honey Lemon had forced him to pack mostly cargo shorts rather than pants. He continued to look around the room, it walls were a nice crimson colour with gold music notes painted onto them. He wondered if Miguel had been the one to paint those on. There was a fan on the ceiling, giving the barest amount of relief against the sweltering weather. There were also some framed photos on the wall that Hiro didn't bother observing.

   Hiro set Baymax's charge station under the wooden desk and stretched his arms high above his head, yawning loudly. He shuffled to the air mattress that didn't have neither pillow nor bedsheet. Hiro certainly didn't need a blanket but he did take Miguel's pillow with absolutely no regrets. He flopped down onto the bed.

   He could hear the Riveras all talking and laughing and he doubted that he would ever get to sleep with all that racket. Hiro fell asleep less than three minutes after the thought.

 

   A loud noise exploded in Hiro's ear and he jumped up, immediately awake and covering his head with his hands, shielding it from whatever it was that had awoken him. It took a few seconds for his frantic mind to realize that the noise wasn't from something dangerous, a few more seconds let him realize that it wasn't noise at all. It was music. Hiro moved his hands from his head and moved his wild hair from his eyes, heart thudding like a drum in his ears, still not convinced it was safe. His throat felt dry and Hiro had to swallow a few times all while trying to steady his breathing.

   He looked up, still faintly shaking and scowled when he saw what had awoken him. The stupid wannabe rockstar. Miguel had changed from his fine pressed button up shirt to a black t-shirt with a black and white photo of a young man and 'Juan Gabriel' in swirled white font underneath. The little shit was holding a guitar which he continued to play loudly. Each strum echoed in Hiro's head and caused his frown to deepen.

   Hiro was going to strangle Miguel with those very guitar strings.

  The first syllable of 'Fuck off' barely passed Hiro's lips before Dante burst in through the open door and tackled him to the mattress, knocking the wind from his lungs. Hiro groaned and placed his palm against the mutt's snout, trying to keep him from slobbering on his face. Dante licked Hiro's hands instead causing the boy to groan in disgust.

   Miguel laughed, ending his short performance with a dramatic flourish. _"Hola Espantapájaro, es hora de comer."_ He said all too sweetly. 'Hello Scarecrow, it's time to eat.'

   Hiro wrestled the dog off him and glared at Miguel. "I'm going to shove that goddamn guitar down your throat." He promised two seconds before he leapt off the bed and tried tackling the other.

   Tried being the keyword, his limbs were still half asleep and Miguel laughed as he dived out of the way easily. Ignoring Hiro's demand of 'Get back here!' as he let out a victory whoop and raced out of the room. He heard a stumble a crash and rapid footsteps behind definitely did not belong to Dante. He risked a look back and saw Hiro chasing after him, screaming bloody murder.

 _"¡Mierda! ¡Mierda! ¡Mierda!"_ Miguel swore, clutching the guitar tighter too him as he ran faster, turning quickly into the living room and then turning again into another room.

   Hiro was right on his heels, Dante on his own. "Get back here you cowa-!" he skidded to a halt in the entrance of the room that Miguel had run into.

   The dining room.

   The Riveras, both the ones that he had met and those that he hadn't, had their eyes on him. Miguel was in his seat, smiling innocently and trying to hide how winded he was. Hiro couldn't even give him the evil eye since all eyes were currently on him. He swallowed, suddenly very self-conscious of his appearance. His too long hair was everywhere, half sticking to his face and half looking like he had rubbed a balloon against it. He could feel where a line of drool had dried on his chin. Dante's pawprints riddled his clothes from when the dog had jumped him.

   Luisa came out from the kitchen, setting the last pot on the table with the others and gasped upon seeing the boy. _"¿Ay Hiro, que te paso?"_ She asked, clicking her tongue. 'Oh Hiro, what happened to you?'

   Hiro knew what she had asked but the answer to the question escaped him so he reached into his pocket for the translator. It wasn't there. It had fallen out either while he had slept or when he had run after Miguel. So he went for the easy answer _. "Nada."_ He sold the reply with a smile.

   The table was huge, well actually it was two large tables placed end to end but it was still huge, the room barely had any spare space. A quick count showed that there was thirteen people present. Thirteen! It was insane. The table was lined with various pots and some of the people who had already lost interest in Hiro's sudden entrance were now filling their plates with the different dishes that the pots contained. There was steaming yellow rice with vegetables, a pot with something the resembled chili, enchiladas, among other things.

   The family was talking loudly, Benny and Manny were engaged in a mini food fight as their mother scolded them, there was laughing and playing and it was the liveliest family dinner Hiro had ever seen. Then again the most people that Hiro's family dinners had included was there people. Even with the size of the table, even with all the seats, of course the only place left to sit was across from Miguel. At least it wasn't next to him.

   There was already a plate there for him filled with food-over filled in Hiro's opinion but he didn't say anything. Not that he could. Hiro was seated right in the middle of the table, Luisa on one side of him, Elena on the other, Miguel across from him. Beside Elena was Franco, beside Luisa was Socorro who was already gnawing on an enchilada. Hiro acted as if he couldn't even see the person across from him and sampled the rice, immediately surprised by how utterly delicious It was.

   Yeah, Aunt Cass owned a bakery and she was great at cooking, Hiro knew this first hand, but Cass never made anything like this. The rice was warm and in perfect harmony with the vegetables and spices and he had to restrain himself from shovelling more into his mouth. It was not an easy task, he had missed lunch after all.

   _"Que bueno, vamos a ver si ahora no se parece tanto como un esqueleto."_ Abuelita Elena chuckled. 'Great, let's see if now he doesn't look so much like a skeleton.' Honestly, it was as if the boy had never eaten a proper meal in his life, at least by her standards.

 _"Ay Abuelita dejalo quito."_ 'Oh Abuelita, leave him be.' Luisa said with a smile _. "¿Hiro, como esta la comida?_ ” 'Hiro, how's the food?' Hiro gave her a thumbs up since his mouth was currently full and she laughed in response.

   After having a nap (even if It had been rudely interrupted) and now with warm food in his stomach Hiro was actually beginning to not think of the whole trip as a vacation to hell. He couldn't understand over ninety percent of what anyone was saying but nobody was really talking to him anyway. It was mostly Elena speaking to him and he while she was speaking too quickly for him to even hope to comprehend her body language showed that she was mostly teasing and doting over him.

   She would pinch at his cheeks or ruffle his hair and he just knew that she had just told him that he needed a haircut but he found that he didn't mind. Usually he didn't like people touching him so freely, especially if he had just met the person but he didn't mind this touch. This was a grandmother's touch. A touch foreign to him since he had never met his grandparents, they had died before he was born. So he took each pinch, ruffle and coo, even if they sent a funny pang through him.

   Elena would ask if he had enough food, keep going on about how he was _'tan flaquito'_. 'Flaquito' was one of the only words he knew the meaning of, skinny, she said It so often that if he lost his memory that would be the only word still engraved into his brain. Endless doting, endless pangs going through him.

   And Luisa, Luisa had pulled Socorro onto her lap when the girl had started fussing and was now using the classic 'airplane' tactic to get the girl to eat her rice. Luisa would congratulate Socorro on each spoonful eaten. Would rub her nose against her daughter's and coo. Socorro would look at her mother with adoring eyes, hands squishing Luisa's cheeks together and giggling. Hiro took a long swing of his drink-something whose name he couldn't hope to pronounce -and even after he felt like his throat was too dry.

   He moved his gaze away from the mother and child and looked over at the rest of the family, met only with people smiling at one another. Rosa laughed as Dante tried coaxing her into giving him a scrap of food. Carmen and Berto were laughing as Gloria called Abel out for trying to sneak another helping of rice. Benny and Manny were fighting over an enchilada before deciding to split it, both of the brothers smiling before Ben accused Manny of taking the larger half, the scene touching something raw inside Hiro and he sucked in a shaky breath and looked down at his plate.

   His leg bounced restlessly under the table and he could feel himself shaking. Each breath was like inhaling a mindful of dirt. Just finish dinner, he willed himself, just finish dinner and you can go have Baymax run a scan on you. You'll be alright, it's okay, calm down, why aren't you calm? Why are you anxious? Nothing is happening to you. Calm down. Why does your chest hurt? Stop panicking, you’re fine. Stop.

 _"¿Hiro, estas bien?"_ Luisa asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. He looked over to her and the grip on his fork tightened. She looked worried. About him. She was worried about him. Hiro felt his head move up and down as he nodded.

   Socorro looked up at him, curiosity filling her side brown eyes. She climbed off her mother's lap and before Hiro or Luisa could do anything she walked over to Hiro's seat and plopped herself down on his lap, deeming him worthy enough to be her chair. She smiled at him, a sweet innocent smile missing one tooth and Hiro just felt his heart ache. Stop. He hadn't even known her for long but he just wanted to hold her and protect her from anything and everything. She reached up and rugged on the strands of his hair, giggling as she did so. Stop panicking.

   She didn't say anything, just looked at Hiro with those big curious eyes that he couldn't look away from. Stop. Was this what Tadashi had felt when they were younger? Stop shaking. Was this how Tadashi felt when he had held him for the first time? He forced his eyes away from her and looked over at the table again, the family still smiling and talking and not realizing yet. Abuela Elena had and repeated Luisa's question as to whether or not he was alright. Stop sweating. This time Hiro couldn't answer, his throat felt narrower than a straw, he couldn't even nod. Stop shaking. And then he turned and his eyes landed on Luisa's worried face and it was over.

   His body was trembling as he carefully but quickly picked up Socorro and placed her back on her mother's lap and stood up so quickly the chair nearly feel over. For the second time that night all eyes were on him. _"Voy a-voy-buenas noches."_ He forced out, reaching for something to say, for some sort of explanation before he all but ran out of the room.

   Hiro went straight for the room and shut it, leaning his body against it and listening to see if anyone was following. He heard nothing but his own ragged breathing. Why? Why had the dinner affected him so much? It wasn't as if Cass wouldn't give him the same motherly gaze. It wasn't as if his aunt wouldn't worry about him as well.

   But seeing what could have been-what would have been if not…Seeing what he had been robbed of right before him, surrounding him, of course he would feel suffocated. He had no memories of his mother, only photos, and photos would never be able to capture something like the motherly gaze that Luisa have him so freely. Photos couldn't catch Socorro’s looks of adoration. Photos were stiff, unmoving, the things that he had just witnessed, those looks, those smiles, those feelings, those were strictly in the moment things. Photos couldn't capture the way Elena fussed over him. Photos couldn't replace those memories that death had stolen from him.

   What had it been like for Tadashi? Tadashi had gotten a taste of these things before they were taken away. Was that better or worse? Was that why he had cared about Hiro so much, why he would 'pester' his little brother with things like 'make sure you brush your teeth' or 'don't stay up so late working!' or everything else that Hiro had complained about. Had Tadashi felt the same thing with him that Hiro had felt when Socorro had looked at him like that; that sense of pride mixed with the most terrible longing in the world. That feeling that was like you were in top of the clouds, gazing at the most beautiful sunset to ever grace the sky before you were sent plummeting down to Earth.

   He didn't blame Cass and Tadashi, no he would do anything but that. They were his family and they always would be, they had filled in the gaps were they could but the thing was Hiro had never realized that he still has gaps until now. And with Tadashi gone? That wasn't a gap, it was a broken hole in him that he had would have thought to be long filled in since. Even with the pass of time there was always going to be a hole in the wall. His hands balled into fists at his sides, still trembling, and squeezed his eyes shut. But why did he have to see the hole now?

   No, no. What was happening-how he was reacting-it wasn't because of that. It was because he had been over working himself. Yeah. It was because of over working himself and lack of sleep. That's why he had been overwhelmed by the family. By that huge, smiling, loving...family.

   He felt his shut eyes grow damp and swore under his breath. He ran a hand through his hair, pulling at it, needing some kind of anchor. It wasn't working. Not wanting to cry against the door due to fear of being heard Hiro moved the air mattress and sat in the corner, knees drawn up to his chest and head down, still trying to steady his breath even if it was obvious that doing so wasn't going to do him any good. He clenched his fists as he felt the first tears slide down his cheeks.

 

   Miguel was considering himself the biggest ass in the world. He had noticed Hiro's fidgeting and anxious expression but he just thought that it was because of all the noise. And once Hiro had ran away no one went after him. Well Abuelita Elena had started getting up but Luisa had just shaken her head the smallest fraction and Abuelita remained seated. Miguel looked at them both perplexed and his mother gave him the 'we'll talk later' look. The rest of the family continued eating, the chatter quieter now. This wasn't why he was considering himself to be the biggest ass in the world, no that part had come after he was helping his mother clear the dishes and the family was out on the patio. "*¿Que paso con Hiro?*" He asked as he stacked the plates to put them in the sink.

 _"Es...complicado, no se exactamente que fue que lo causo irse corriendo pero tengo un idea de que fue."_ She said slowly. 'It's...complicated, I don't know exactly what made him run away but I have any idea as to what it was.'

 _"¿Pues? ¿Que paso?"_ Miguel pried 'Well? What was it?' He started washing the first of the dishes, he would get the plates and utensils, his mom would get the pots and glasses.

 _"No puedes repitir esto, este información era solamente para tu padre, Abuelita y yo."_ 'You can't repeat this, this information was only for your father, Abuelita and I.' Or for anyone who happened to own a computer and looked up Hiro’s name.

   Miguel nodded. She sighed. _"¿Tu sabes porque Hiro vino paraca verda?"_ 'You know why Hiro came over here right?' Once again Miguel nodded, Honey had told him that the boy had been over working himself and was high strung.

   " _La cosa es que su hermano era el que aseguraba que Hiro no se sobresaltara, y...y fallecio haci unos años atras, en una explosion. Y él era practicamente la unica familia que Hiro tenia, no contando su tia. Y yo creo que ahora, vinendo una familia tan grande, juntos, le causo recordar unos sentimientos doloroso."_ She said, talking softly as if the walls had ears. It wasn't a shameful whisper, it was a respectful one.

   'The thing is that his brother would be the one to make sure that Hiro didn't over work himself, and...and he died a few years ago, in an explosion. And he was practically the only family Hiro had, not counting his aunt. And I think that now, seeing such a large family, together, caused for him to remember some painful feelings.'

   Miguel felt his blood turn to ice. Earlier, when he had woken Hiro up, how he had reacted to the loud noise, covering his head and curling in on himself. Dante looked up at him, tilting his head before trotting out of the kitchen and down the hall. Miguel knew where he was going.

 _"Regreso...regreso en un minuto."_ He said, following is spirit guide.'I'll... I'll be back in a minute.'

   He found Dante right where he knew he would: waiting in front of his room.

   Miguel knew that he was probably the last person that Hiro wanted to see and he didn't blame him. Miguel didn't even know why he was doing this after they had spent all morning feuding but he couldn't…he couldn't leave him like that. Praying that Dante would keep quiet he opened the door a crack and peered inside. Hiro was sitting in the corner of the air mattress, face buried in his knees and It didn't take a genius to know that he was crying. Quietly, near silently, but crying nonetheless. Miguel bit his lip, unsure of what he could do it say. He looked down at Dante, his spirit guide was equally at a loss of what to do.

   Hiro didn't want or need him to comfort him, that much Miguel knew. He also knew that Hiro needed someone. He spotted the charge station under his desk and huffed out a breath through his nose. Hopefully nothing would break because of this. He was pretty sure that Hiro couldn't hear him but he still whispered the 'ow' so quietly that he feared that the robot wouldn't catch it.

   Baymax did.

   He shut the door right when Baymax started inflating, the clatter of the table covering the click of the door shutting. Miguel let out a breath that he didn't know that he had been holding. Dante looked up at him proudly, wagging his tail as if agreeing with what he had done _. "Vamos a terminar de limpiar los trastes."_ He whispered. 'Lets finish doing the dishes.' Dante whined.

   Miguel rolled his eyes and patted Dante's head. _"Y te dejo comer la comida que sobro."_ 'And I'll you eat the leftovers.' Dante automatically perked up and ran to the kitchen. He smiled and followed suite.

 

   Hiro had jumped out of his skin when Baymax had inflated, overturning the table with a loud crash. In the back of his mind he worried if anything had been broken. Why had Baymax activated? He had never said 'ow' and Baymax had never activated to the sound of his crying before. A glitch perhaps? Hiro buried his face into his knees once more; he hated being caught crying, even if it was only Baymax.

   "Hiro?" Baymax asked, even though his voice was automated he sounded confused. "Is your emotional status alright?"

   He shook his head.

   "It is alright to cry." Baymax reminded him. Hiro gave a teary chuckle. Of course Baymax would say that.

   The robot padded over to him, momentarily confused as to how step onto the air mattress but was soon in It and standing beside Hiro's balled up form. "This is not a physical injury." He concluded. Even the had heard the sound ow there was no visible wound.

   He nodded.

   This was not something that he could fix by giving Hiro a ride, Baymax knew this. True, a scan showed that Hiro's hormones were not in their desired levels but it was not a long term sadness like it had been when Baymax had first downloaded his information of emotional pain. Baymax knew that with how Hiro had been working and with his stress levels that it only would have been a matter of time before something ended up overwhelming Hiro but he couldn't help but feel as if he could have prevented it somehow.

   Baymax sat down on the mattress beside his friend and patted his head. "There, there, it will be alright." He reassured.

   Hiro have another sad laugh tears beginning to slow their descent down his face and looked up at the robot before leaning into his marshmallow-like body, sighing as Baymax heated up his core slightly. It wasn't the same heat that the robot would use to warm Hiro up after he was out in the snow or something along those lines. No, this heat was just to mimic the body heat of a human. It would make the hug treatment more effective. Baymax wrapped his thick arms against the boy who moved closer to the robot. He would always feel exhausted after crying, even now when he had already taken such a long nap earlier that day. And with how warm Baymax felt? Yeah, he was allowed to rest his eyes for a bit.

 

   The Rivera family were a b using their musical freedom. That was what Miguel officially thought. Rosa had learned to play the violin and after horrendous lessons was now a pro. Abel learned to play the accordion. But now the twins had started learning how to play instruments of their own. Flutes to be exact. Horrible, screeching, wheezing, flutes that had Dante howling. Oh he was all for the twins pursuing their musical talent but that didn't mean that he was keen on going deaf. Not to mention that they kept misplacing their flutes and arguing that the other had the one that belonged to him. He played his guitar in the corner as the twins performed their song, hitting nearly every note wrong but earning a round of applause nonetheless.

   He chuckled, lazily plucking at the strings of his guitar. It could be worse, they could have wanted to learn how to play trumpets. Dante whined, as if hearing the thought.

   His father sat beside him. "¿Como te fue con Hiro?" 'How did it go with Hiro?' He asked. No doubt Luisa had told Enrique of how he left to check on the boy after hearing of his past.

 _"Bien, bien, lo dejé con su robot."_ Miguel replied 'Good, good, I left him with his robot.'

   Enrique nodded and the two day in silence. They hadn't had much to talk about as of late, after all Miguel had no interest in shoe making and Enrique didn't have the same passion for music. Sure, there were other things they could talk about but it was often with the other family members filling in the conversation and helping them along. Enrique glanced at the design on Miguel's shirt before looking away. Also there was that little unspoken thing that neither would talk about.

 _"Voy a chequear si los gemelos necisitan ayuda."_ Enrique lied, not sure what else he could say. 'I'm going to check if the twins need help.'

   Miguel nodded, still plucking at the strings. He stayed for about ten more minutes before going into the house, wanting to go to sleep. Dante of course followed him like a shadow. He knocked on the door of his room, warning Hiro that he was going to come in and entered his room.

   The light from the hallway flooded the dark room and revealed Hiro in the same corner of the bed but now lying against Baymax, snoring softly, even the robot had his eyes closed. Miguel gave a small smile and entered the room, ushering Dante in and willing him to be quiet, shutting the door behind the spirit guide. He tiptoed quietly, changing into a pair of pyjamas by the moonlight that shone in through the window and padded over to the bed. The bed creaked and dipped under his weight but Hiro didn't stir. Miguel let out a sigh of relief and softly patted the space next to him, Dante leapt into his place on the bed.

 _"¿Estas satisfecho con el cuidado de Hiro?”_ Baymax asked through the darkness, scaring the ever living shit out of him. 'Are you satisfied with Hiro's care?'

Miguel barely kept himself from screaming _"¡MadredeDios!"_ He whisper shouted. _"¿¡Que carajo te pasa!? ¡No hagas eso!"_ He then realized he was cursing at a robot and sighed. More so he realized that Baymax knew that he had been the one to activate him.

 _"¿Estas satisfecho con el cuidado de Hiro?"_ Baymax repeated.

   "Yes, I'm satisfied with my care." Miguel replied. He could see the robot tilt his head in momentary confusion and chuckled. "Bilingual, don't tell Hiro."

   Baymax nodded and Miguel could barely keep from laughing as the robot ever so slowly inched his way from Hiro and nearly lost it when Baymax finally got away from the boy and Hiro's top half fell onto the bed with a soft plop not even stirring. The robot struggled momentarily to get up but managed to get off the bed and slowly waddled to the charge station.

   "Hey Baymax?" Miguel halted him. The robot looked over to him. "Besides the bilingual thing, can you also not tell him that I'm the one who activated you?"

   "Of course Miguel." He promised. He climbed into the charge station and deflated, shutting off.

   Miguel got a second to breathe before his cellphone rang, loud as thunder in the quiet room. It was next to the overturned deal in the pile of other items. He let out a string of rushed curses, both in English and in Spanish and leapt off the bed, practically diving for the blasted phone.

   It was his cousin. He answered the phone with a harsh whisper. "Hello?" Miguel looked over to the air mattress and while Hiro had rolled over he hadn't woken up.

   "Hola Miguel!" Honey Lemon chimed, her sunny demeanor still clear as day even over the phone. "How are you, primo?"

   "I'm fine Limonada, just dealing with strange gringos and their robots." He said.

   "Ay don't call Hiro strange!" Honey laughed before turning serious. "Speaking of which that's why I'm calling, is he alright? Cass is worried that he hasn't called like he said he would."

   "He uh..." He looked over to the sleeping boy. "He's fine, he just fell asleep pretty quickly.” Which was true, but Miguel wasn't going to mention what had happened at dinner. “And here I thought you wanted to talk to your favourite cousin." He added

   "Enserio?!" She exclaimed, clearly surprised. "He actually fell asleep early?! Okay don't wake him up, it's fine, he can call tomorrow. And you know very well that I don’t have favourites. But if I did it would be Rosa." She teased.

   The way she talked about him sleeping made it sound like a miracle. Exactly how bad was Hiro's situation? He let out an offended “Hey!” at that last part however.

  "And what about you? What do you think of him? How are you two getting along?" Honey continued.

   The first words that came to Miguel's mind when she asked what he thought of Hiro were stubborn, stuck up, know it all, etc. When she asked how they got along he was tempted to answer how Hiro had threatened to kill him with his own guitar. He looked over at the sleeping figure bathed in moonlight, how fragile he seemed, how his eyelashes fell atop rosy cheeks giving him a look of innocence that was the complete opposite of how he had looked chasing after him. He recalled how small Hiro had looked, curled in on himself as he cried. How sadly he had smiled at Socorro.

   "I don't know what to think of him yet," he answered honestly. "He seems really nice though. I think we will-we could get along pretty well."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I usually dump the angst in the middle of the fanfic but I basically just went 'screw it' and included it early on. You're all welcome. I just see Hiro getting overwhelmed, with how loud everything is, with how nice everyone is, seeing a mother react with her child, seeing two brothers playing. All that combined with lack of sleep and a stressed as hell mind? You better believe that's going to affect him.  
> I usually leave long ass notes but its nearly one in the morning and I will lose all my computer rights if my mom catches me awake.  
> Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. Also remember to share any advice you have on a better way to include the translations or if it should just stay as it is.


	3. How To Take Care Of A Baby-Child-Small Human-Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "¡Hirooooooo!" Socorro whined just under an hour later. "¡Tu dijiste que tu ibas a enseñarme tus invencioneeees!" She had trouble pronouncing the word 'invenciones' instead she would say 'inven-non-es' 'Hirooooooo! You said that you were going to show me your inventionnnnns!' she was lying down on the bed, head hanging off and looking at Hiro through her upside down view.  
>  Number forty eight on the list of things that Hiro was learning about five year olds: the more bored they are, the more letters they add to a word. He stifled a groan, yeah he had volunteered to watch her but he hadn't expected her to be so-so-! So much like a little kid! "Esto es un invención" he repeated for the umpteenth time. 'This is an invention.' He had said it so many times that he no longer needed the translator for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M NOT DEAD!!!  
> In between cleaning the whole house, mother refusing to lend me the computer and good old fashioned procrastination this chapter took WAY longer than I would have liked to write out. I tried proof-reading but just reminding y'all that my tablet's autocorrect is fucking weird.   
> So yeah, Hiro is taking care of a small human, what could possibly go wrong?

  Miguel's biological alarm woke him with the sun as it shone in through the window, slowly flooding the room with golden light. He stretched his arms above his bed and let out a satisfied groan. He nearly jumped out of his skin and back into the Land of the Dead when he saw a body on the mattress next to him before his brain filled him in on yesterday's memories. Right. Right, his cousin had recommended that Hiro stay with them for some time to relax and get his shit together. Those hadn't been her _exact_ words but that had been the end message give or take. And he had already agreed let Hiro sleep in his room before he had arrived so now he was stuck with the damn gringo as a roommate.

   While the Chinchilla's school was on break, Miguel still had class. Just for a bit longer, and then he was free, free from High school. He only had a few months left, only a few months and then he would be able to pursue his musical career like he had always dreamed of doing. That was the agreement that his family and he had made. Miguel didn't disagree with the decision but that didn't mean that he couldn't wish for school to be over quicker. Being so close to his dreams coming true…it was one hell of a motivator. So he would put up with the school work, with the teachers who kept trying to hammer the same information into student’s brains the same way that they had been doing for so long because _obviously_ everyone would be able to learn the exact same way.

  Anyway, back to the whole strange gringo with a robot situation.

  He still didn't know what to make of the espantapájaro; sure if you had asked him that before dinner yesterday he would have easily replied something along the lines of 'I can't wait till that cabrón leaves' or something like that. But after learning a bit about him, some of his past, after (accidentally) seeing him cry? Now he wasn't sure. But Hiro did look a lot nicer when he was asleep, more relaxed and innocent, like the young man he was. Plus the Chinchilla couldn't glare at him while he was asleep. Still, now that he knew a bit about where Hiro was coming from he felt bad for getting off on the wrong foot with him. Oh he was still somewhat pissed at boy genius but at least now Miguel knew that Hiro hadn't been a _complete_ dick on purpose, he had only been a partial dick on purpose.

  But Miguel had been a complete dick on purpose. Miguel knew that he had. And he wanted to do something to fix it. Or at least put a band-aid on it till he could get back to it later after school. He looked over at Dante who had also woken up and was yawning, letting out a nice bout of morning breath. Maybe his spirit guide could give him some...guidance?

  Dante licked up his own nose.

    Okay so maybe not. He loved his spirit guide, truly, he did, but at times it seemed like he was given the only guide with no brains. How was Dante eating his own snot supposed-

  "Ah, you're a genius, Dante!" Miguel whisper shouted so he wouldn't wake up the sleeping boy.

  Dante replied by chewing at his tail.

 

  Hiro was not a morning person. He knew that he was awake but procrastinated on actually opening his eyes, trying to convince himself that he could go back to sleep. The noise from outside quickly proved him wrong. Hiro groaned and sat up, immediately wincing at the pain the shot up his neck. Apparently he had not chosen the best position to sleep in last night. Wait this wasn't his bed, or his room for that matter, what-. Right. Vacation. Where was Baymax? Hadn't he fallen asleep next to the robot after-after his little episode? Had Miguel dragged Baymax away? He looked over to where Baymax's charge station was, the previously overturned desk now upright and back in its place with all its things on it. Baymax was in his station. Looking over to the wannabe rockstar's bed he found it empty. Well at least today Miguel hasn't woken him up with his guitar. The dog wasn't in the room either so maybe he could avoid being slobbered on if he stayed in the room.

    His stomach growled, loudly protesting that idea. He flopped down face first into the bed, debating whether or not his stomach eating itself alive was worth staying in bed longer. He checked the time on his phone. Barely eight o'clock.

    Before Hiro could regret the decision he got up, yawning loudly and scratching at his mess of hair. He hadn't changed out of yesterday’s clothes which meant a shower was in order. His stomach growled again. Right, food first, shower later. Still, he was going to _try_ and look presentable. He went over to the suitcase, lied it down and opened it up.

    The first things that could be seen were clothes but underneath Hiro had hidden some spare parts and tools. He would get around to using those later. Cass had packed some hair ties in a plastic bag and while in that moment Hiro had teased her for her unnecessary organizing, he was now glad that she had. Plus she has packed his hairbrush in the same bag.

    Using the dresser mirror he tried brushing his hair. Tried being the keyword because holy hell there were so many tangles! He flinched as worked out the knots in his hair and wondered what would happen if he said ow. Would Baymax brush his hair for him? He would test that idea later. Hiro still didn’t know what he could convince the robot to do, then again he had gotten Baymax to make him a sandwich once so asking him to fix his hair wasn’t that far out there.

    Hiro didn't know how long he had spent untangling his hair but he did know that he was certainly more awake by then time he was finished. He picked his hair up in a bun rather than a ponytail, trying to seem neater. He nearly forgot his translator and the fact that he had misplaced it but spotted the small device on the air mattress, a piece of nearly folded paper underneath.

  He picked up the machine, checked if it had enough charge, pocketed it and unfolded the paper, reading the few lines of hastily scrawled handwriting.

  _Buenas Días Dormilón, tengo que ir a escuela, trata de no echarme mucho de menos. Disculpa por cómo me comporte ayer (aunque tú no estabas exactamente de buen humor) asique te hice desayuno. De nada, Miguel. Recuerda de llamar a tu tía y amigos._

  Hiro sighed as he pulled the translator out of his pocket and typed the whole mess into it, reading the English version off the screen. He made a mental note to tweak the machine so that it would be able to scan document to translate them.

  'Good morning Sleepyhead, I have to go to school, try to not miss me too much,' Hiro snorted, like hell he would. 'I'm sorry for how I acted yesterday (even if you weren't exactly in a good mood) so I made you breakfast. You're welcome, Miguel. Remember to call your aunt and friends.'

    "…Okay...okay wow not what I was expecting." Hiro said aloud to the empty room. Guess who now felt like a jerk? If you answered Hiro Hamada then you would be correct.

    Breakfast. Miguel had made him fucking food. To apologize for being a bitch. Hell. How was Hiro supposed to reply to this? Did he have to do something nice for Miguel? Did he have to make him something? Help, he doesn't know how this sort of thing works. Crap. Was he supposed to do the same thing and make him breakfast or could it be something different? Why had Miguel even apologized?

    Fuck it, he would figure it out later, he needed brain food. He put both the note and the translator in his pocket and exited the room. Dante was outside waiting for him and jumped him as soon as he walked out, barking like crazy and trying to lick his face.

    "Oh god why do you keep doing this?!" He groaned, he didn't push the dog down but he did block his face with his arms to avoid any drool. "I am **_not_** Miguel, he's the one you want to jump on."

    Dante apparently didn't care and continued running circles around Hiro like an overexcited puppy.

  Hiro sighed "Can you at least remind me how to get to the kitchen then?" He didn’t have the best sense of direction.

  Miraculously the hairless dog trotted down the hallway, stopped and the end and looked back at Hiro as if waiting for him to follow. "What the hell?" He shrugged and followed after Dante. He's followed the trail of a microbot before, why would a dog be any different?

    Dante led him through the house and surprisingly showed him to the kitchen. There was a bowl with a napkin on top that had his name scribbled on it. Hiro chuckled. Seriously, how dorky could Miguel get? He moved the napkin away and found something that appeared to be scrambled eggs and some type of sausage. Despite being cooked well before Hiro had woken up it still smelled pretty damn good. And-he thanked every possible god out there-there was a cup of coffee next to it. Great, now he absolutely owed Miguel something.

    Both were cold so he popped the bowl in the microwave first, watching it spin and hearing the faint crackle it gave as it heated up. Dante whined next to him, begging with his eyes. Hiro rolled his eyes and smiled.

  "I'll give you a piece of sausage in a minute alright? Just be patient." He promised. Dante immediately perked up, giving a single bark in agreement.

    The microwave beeped and Hiro removed the bowl and put in the coffee to warm up. Hiro held up half a sausage link and moved it back and forth slowly in front of the dog, laughing as Dante followed the meat with his eyes. "Okay here you go." He relented, dropping the sausage in front of the dog. It was barely on the ground for a second before Dante scarfed it up. Hiro laughed and shook his head. What was the matter with this crazy dog?

    Once again the microwave alerted him that his food was done. He set the coffee next to the bowl and went on a hunt for a fork, opening different drawers in the kitchen. Dante pointed to a drawer and presto, forks. Fork and bowl in one hand, coffee in the other, Hiro turned to go to the dining room, silently praying that Dante wouldn't knock him over.

  Instead Hiro almost knocked over Luisa when she came into the kitchen. The coffee threatened to spill but thankfully didn't. Hiro let out a sigh of relief. He

  " _Buenas días, Hiro._ " Luisa greeted with a warm smile.

  " _Buenas dias_ , Luisa.” Hiro said, he still cringed at his god awful accent.

  " _Yo iba a levantarte para desayuno. Miguel lo concino antes que se fue a la escuela. Los gemelos y Rosa tienen clase también, los demás están en la zapatería._ " She continued. 'I was going to wake you up for breakfast. Miguel cooked it before he went to school. The twins and Rosa have class as well, the others are in the shoe factory.' Socorro would start school next year.

  "Ah..." He set the food on a nearby counter and pulled out the translator. "¿ _Puedes repetir eso por favor_?" Another phrase that Honey had taught him 'Can you repeat that please?'

  She did and Hiro read off the machines screen. He typed in his response and read it out. " _Si, Miguel me dejo una nota sobre desayuno. Gracias_." 'Yeah, Miguel left me a note about breakfast. Thank you.'

    " _Te dejo comer en paz, pero después quiero que vayas al zapatería, es el edificio allí al lado. ¿Okay?_ "  Luisa said, pointing to the building next door. 'I'll leave you to eat in peace but after I want you to go to the shoe factory, it's the building over there. Okay?'

    Hiro, while he was confused, nodded before remembering something. He typed out something on the device and read it. " _Uh, una cosa más, ¿dónde queda el baño? Me quiero bañarme_." He asked awkwardly. 'Uh, one more thing, where's the bathroom? I would like to take a shower''

    " _Es el cuarto al derecha de la de Miguel_." She replied. 'It's the room to the right of Miguel's.'

    " _Gracias_." He picked up his meal and went to the dining room with Dante at his heels.

 

    " _¿Ustedes...ustedes me quieren enseñar cómo hacer...zapatos?"_ Hiro asked, unsure that the device has translated what they had told him correctly. 'You...you guys want to show me how to make...shoes?'

  He had come to the Zapatería after he ate breakfast and showered, as promised. The breakfast had been delicious, Hiro had always been a fan of spicy foods. And the shower afterwards had been much needed and well appreciated. He had even taken the time to wash his hair which of course meant that he had to untangle his hair _again_ afterwards but hey, he was the one who wouldn't get it cut. Now, dressed in a t-shirt with Cass's bakery logo on the front and shorts, Hiro was hearing this.

  Hiro almost thought that they were joking but they seemed serious about it. They wanted him, the one who had graduated high school at thirteen, entered one of the most prestigious colleges in San Fransokyo, if not the world, at fourteen, someone who pushed the boundaries of robots and engineering, to make shoes. Shoes. They had literally seen the robot that he had built and they wanted to _teach_ him how to make shoes. He had made entire supersuits!

    But another reason why he was so hesitant was because after breakfast he had been planning on stealing away to his room and working on somethings in private. Things like trying to figure out the properties of the portal or ways that a new one could be built without it collapsing. He hadn't built anything yet but he had run simulations and he knew that he was missing _something_. No, he was not going to pull a Callaghan and go into a crazed obsession for answers but could he really help but be curious?

    That portal, that alternative universe, had the properties to keep a human in stasis for as long as it did with **no** damaging side effects! Imagine what could be done if that the substance that created the universe could be harvested? If it's properties could be duplicated! It could be a revolutionary breakthrough for the field of medicinal science! Imagine, the same substance could be used to more successfully keep patients who are in comas alive while eliminating the dangers of their brain waves dying. The options to what it could be used for were near limitless!

    But first Hiro would have to do so many things. Figure out what had caused the portal to fail, why the containment field hadn’t worked. Then eliminate said factor. If it could be eliminated that is. If not...if not Hiro had no idea what he would do. Maybe there was some alternative way to access that dimension. But he wouldn't be able to figure that out if he couldn't _work_. He hadn't told his friends of the work he was doing yet, one reason being that he didn't like saying anything unless he knew he was right. The other was that he didn't think they would want him tampering with that.

    “¡ _Estas son tus vacaciones, Hiro! No queremos que tú te quedas aburrido ¿y que sería más divertido que enseñarte como hacer zapatos?"_ Enrique exclaimed. It was true that he didn’t want Hiro to get bored but he also really wanted to teach Hiro how to make shoes since he had never really gotten the chance to with Miguel since his son was not interested in the family business.

    Hiro looked at the translator screen 'It's your vacation, Hiro! We don't want you to be bored and what would be more fun than showing you how to make shoes?'

  He sighed. Enrique looked so excited to teach him. Fine. Figuring out the portal could wait, he had already been hitting dead ends for a while, what was a few hours more of waiting? Besides, maybe he could see things from a new angle while he worked. And it was just shoes, should be easy enough.

  "Okay."

  Hiro Hamada: Well known genius in San Fransokyo, graduated high school at the age of thirteen, entered in of the best colleges in the world at the age of fourteen. He had invented the microbot, remade Baymax, saved cities and its people, he led the team Big Hero 6, and he had entered a portal to a dimension beyond most people's wildest dreams. He had done all of this and more.

    And he couldn't make a pair of fucking shoes.

  He wasn't even making them from scratch! The pattern had already been cut out for him! But his hands, the hands that made robots and other inventions with barely a thought, seemed incapable to glue this part where it needed to go, or to use a sewing machine, or to just not turn into useless lumps of meat. His face burned as he heard one of the Riveras snicker, probably Abel if he had to bet on who it was.

    " _Paciencia, esto no se va a completar en un día nada mas_." Enrique reassured even if he was trying not to cringe at how Hiro handled the tools and-good Lord he was seeing one of those pieces upside down. 'Patience, this isn't going to be completed in only a day.'

  _"Lo se_." Hiro huffed 'I know.’ He knew that the pattern he was dealing with was probably the most basic out there save for sandals, so it was understandable how the patterns inability to cooperate would frustrate him just a bit.

  Enrique corrected Hiro as he was about to put a part of the right shoe to the left and huffed a laugh when the boy groaned and facepalmed.

  Whatever Hiro had said about shoemaking being easy he took it back. He took it all back. It was hard as hell and anyone who had enough sanity and patience to subject themselves to this torture should be held to the highest level of respect. How could Miguel's entire family know how to do this? It was just-it was impossible.

  But despite the complaining groans, and frustration and sewing machine not doing what it was supposed to do-Hiro was having fun. He was actually _enjoying_ the change. In a really odd way. He loathed the process, absolutely loathed it and he wasn't even done with the first part but there were parts he liked.

    Enrique would talk about how the family got into the whole shoemaking business in the first place. Hiro was definitely impressed by Imelda's story, taking charge like that? Raising a kid on her own without knowing what had happened to her husband? She had to have been pretty tough. He also learned that the Riveras knew a _lot_ about their family history, so did most of the town since the whole thing of a once famous musician murdering one of their past relatives and stealing his music as his own came into light.

    Hiro typed something into the device and read what it said. _"¿Me puedes contar más de eso?_ " He asked without thinking. 'Can you tell me more about that?' "Ah, sorry! I didn't mean it that way!" He quickly apologized, not taking the time to type it into the machine.

    " _Está bien, no te preocupes, estoy feliz que quieres saber más, pero sería mejor si preguntaste eso a Miguel. Sé que sería estático para contarte sobre eso_." Enrique smiled. Besides, that could be a good way to get Miguel and Hiro talking.

    He read the screen. 'It's alright, don't worry, I'm glad that you want to know more, but it would be better if you asked Miguel about that. I know he'd be ecstatic to tell you about it.' He chewed on the inside of his mouth. Yeah, while Miguel had made him breakfast Hiro didn't think that meant that he could ask him about how his great great grandfather was murdered. Dead relatives, not the best topic starter, especially for Hiro.

    Nevertheless he nodded. Earlier he had seen some framed letters on the wall of the zapatería and read the description next to them. It hadn't made sense when he had read it, even after translating but now it did. Those letters were from the great great grandfather. So if Hiro really wanted to know more he would just read the letters like the rest of the public.

    " _Ese parte no se va halle. Y pusiste ese parte mal."_ Enrique remarked, pointing at different spots of where Hiro was working. 'This part doesn't go there. And you put that part on wrong.'

    " _No es mi culpa, me distrajiste con tus cuentos_." He replied after quickly typing out his answer. 'It's not my fault, you distracted me with your stories.'

  Enrique chuckled. "¿ _Preferías que trabajaras en silencio_?" He threatened. Hiro quickly shook his head. 'Would you prefer to work in silence?'

  

    _"¡Ya es hora del almorzar!"_ Luisa called from the house some time later. 'It's already lunchtime!'

    Hiro blinked slowly as if coming out of a dream. The sun was high on the sky and he had lost track of time. How long has he been working on shoes? Sure, the shoe looked like a piece of shit but still, it counted as work. That's right, shoe, singular, even with all the time That had passed he had only done one. Okay to be honest he wasn't even done with one, one was just slightly more completed than the other. They still weren't even assembled into a shoe shape. The worst part was that Enrique was right in the middle of another embarrassing story from Miguel's childhood.

    So far Hiro's favourite story was of when Miguel was five and Luisa had put on facepaint for this holiday, 'Dia de Muertes'. When Miguel had seen his skeleton makeup in the mirror he scared himself and cried for nearly half an hour after. 'So far' because the story that Enrique was in the middle of a different story that seemed promising.

    The rest of the family-minus the ones that were at school-began entering the house, however some had packed their own lunch. Hiro took a deep breath and let it out slowly, mentally psyching himself up. He didn't want to repeat yesterday's dinner experience.  It would be alright, yesterday he hadn't known what to expect, now he did.

    " _Hiro_ ," Enrique began. " _Si quieres puedes llevarte la comida para el cuarto de Miguel y comer allí._ " 'Hiro, if you want you can take the food to Miguel's room and eat there.'

    Hiro smiled and shook his head. " _No gracias_." He would be fine. Enrique nodded and got up, walking to the house. Dante, who until now had been lying down at his feet as he worked, say up and looked at him expectantly. "Come on, Dante." Hiro said, standing up and followed Enrique, Dante trotted alongside him.

    Luisa had made this kind of soup thing-pozole she had called it. God, it was so damn hot, why would anyone be making soup? But he didn't say that of course, he did however discreetly pull at his shirt to fan himself. Dante had sneakily hid himself under the table where Socorro would not so subtly feed the dog some pieces of meat from the soup, giggling loudly. Hiro smiled fondly at the little girl. He had always been the youngest in the house and he didn’t really have any experience with little kids but he definitely liked Socorro. Benny and Manny too although they could be a bit much at times.

    The little girl was getting soup stains all over her flower patterned sun dress and apparently didn't care. Luisa told her to be more careful and sighed at the stains that she would have to clean out later, even if she did smile at her daughter's laughing.

  Like the day before Elena was making comments about Hiro, how skinny he was and if he was enjoying the food. Enrique proudly told her of Hiro's shoemaking-his attempt at it at least -as if she hadn't been there in the shop too. Hiro smiled sheepishly as she laughed and began criticizing everything that Hiro had done when attempting to make the base come together but threw a few compliments in there as well. It was mostly playful criticism though. He didn't take it to heart of course, he knew that even Socorro could do a better job than he had done. Luisa, took pity on him, and suggested that they teach him how to shoeshine instead before they taught him to make shoes.

    That caused Elena to fire off something rapid Spanish that he almost couldn't catch with his translator. Something about how since he was staying with The Riveras he was going to work like one. He didn't know why but the comment made him burst out laughing, maybe It was because of how passionately she had argued over it, maybe It was the sentence itself, whatever the reason, it made him laugh, letting some of the tension flow out of his body. Abel shot back with something along the lines of 'Good luck with that, Dante would have better luck making shoes than he does.' causing Elena threaten hit him with her shoe and for Hiro to fall into another bout of laughter.

    " _Tengo que ir al supermercado. Necesito que alguien quede a Coco."_ Luisa announced while she cleared the plates. Hiro helped. 'I need to go to the supermarket. I need someone to take care of Coco.'

    " _¿No puedes llevarla contigo? Tengo mis manos llenas con la zapatería."_ Enrique asked. 'Can't you take her with you? I have my hands full with the shoe shop.'

  Luisa made a cutthroat motion and Enrique gave a little 'Oh' in understanding. Socorro was currently at an age where she could not keep secrets and had to announce everything, so if Luisa wasn't taking her along it was because she had to buy something that Coco couldn't be talking about freely.

  " _¿No puedes pedir que Abuelita Elena la quede?"_ Enrique asked. 'Can’t you ask Abuelita Elena to take care of her?'

  Luisa shook her head. " _Elena se va a ir conmigo."_ She replied. 'Elena is going to go with me.'

  _"¿Que tú quieres que yo haga? Tengo una orden para completar y-"_ He began. 'What do you want me to do? I have an order to complete and-'

  “ _Yo puedo quedarla."_ Hiro offered. 'I could take care of her.'

  _"Hiro, ¿estás seguro que es un buen idea?"_ Luisa asked cautiously. Last time Hiro had been a bit overcome by Socorro to say the least. She didn't want to bring up any other painful memories. Although she knew that she couldn't dance around the boy either, memories would be inevitable. 'Hiro, are you sure that's a good idea?'

  " _Sí, estoy seguro_." He reassured. Socorro was a good kid and Hiro wanted to get to know her. Besides, he couldn't spend the whole vacation ignoring the little girl with the curious gaze so he should start getting used to it. 'Yes I'm sure.'

  Hiro turned to Enrique. "¿ _Podemos seguir con los zapatos mañana?"_ He asked apologetically. 'Can we continue with the shoes tomorrow?'

  " _Por supuesto Hiro, gracias por encargarte de Coco."_ Enrique said. He wasn't going to lie, he had wanted to teach Hiro some more but he had work to do and now Hiro did too. 'Of course Hiro, thanks you for staying in charge of Coco.'

  Luisa crouched down beside her daughter to look her in the eye. " _Coco, tengo que ir para la tienda. Tu papá tiene que trabajar en la zapatería. Pero Hiro va a quedar contigo. ¿Entiendes?"_ She explained. 'Coco, I need to go to the store. Your dad needs to work in the zapatería. But Hiro is going to stay with you. Understand?'

    Socorro immediately started pouting. _"¡Pero yo quiero ir también!”_ She whined. 'But I want to go too!'

  " _Cielito, no puedes ir conmigo. Yo sé que vas divertirte con Hiro_." Luisa soothed. 'Angel, you can't go with me. I know that you'll have fun with Hiro.'

  " _Socorro, te puedo mostrar mis invenciones_." Hiro coaxed, reading off his translator before smiling at the girl. 'Socorro, I can show you my inventions.'

    Her face lit up. _"¿Como el robot?"_ She gasped. 'Like the robot?'

    He swiftly typed out an answer and read it." _Puede ser, pero tienes que dejar que tu mamá va para el supermercado."_ He replied. 'Could be, but you have to let your mom go to the supermarket.'

  Coco pouted some more before smiling widely and nodding before announcing _"¡Me quedo con Hiro!"_ As if it had been her idea in the first place. 'I'm staying with Hiro!'

  Hiro chuckled, her enthusiasm reminding him of Honey Lemon. And if she was interested in his inventions? Certainly an improvement from her brother-ah, he had to remind himself that Miguel had made him breakfast and how Hiro had promised to ‘re-meet' Miguel in a way. Basically he was trying to erase yesterday's petty bickering from his mind and start on a blank page with Miguel. The little girl jumped at Hiro, giving him a hug and almost knocking him off his feet. Okay he couldn't deny that she was certainly like her brother in that sense.

  _"¡Socorro, quedado! ¡Hiro es frágil!"_ Abuelita Elena scolded. 'Coco, be careful! Hiro is fragile!'

  Coco just giggled in response.

 

  _"¡Hirooooooo!"_ Socorro whined just under an hour later. _"¡Tu dijiste que tu ibas a enseñarme tus invencioneeees!_ " She had trouble pronouncing the word ' _invenciones_ ' instead she would say 'inven-non-es' 'Hirooooooo! You said that you were going to show me your inventionnnnns!' she was lying down on the bed, head hanging off and looking at Hiro through her upside down view.

  Number forty eight on the list of things that Hiro was learning about five year olds: the more bored they are, the more letters they add to a word. He stifled a groan, yeah he had volunteered to watch her but he hadn't expected her to be so-so-! So much like a little kid! " _Esto **es** un invención_ " he repeated for the umpteenth time. 'This **is** an invention.' He had said it so many times that he no longer needed the translator for it.

    They had gone to Miguel's room, Hiro seated on the air mattress, Coco sprawled on Miguel's bed and Dante seated right next to Hiro-not on the air mattress though, Hiro was afraid that the dog's sharp class might tear a hole in it.

    He had gotten the parts from the suitcase and put it together rather quickly. Socorro had wanted to help assemble it but that was ridiculous, he couldn't let a little kid help build something like this. The parts that were in the suitcase, they weren't just random pieces of metal, no, he had packed together specific pieces. It has been something that he had already built in the garage in San Fransokyo, in secret of course, and had dismantled to bring with him. What were the parts for? A 3-D simulator. It was pretty small, just a short, silver, cylinder. One might mistake it for some sort of weird petite thermos at first. In reality it was a simulator specifically designed to show the different reactions that the portal-the portal from project Silent Sparrow-would give if one attempted to recreate it.

    Each one thus far had failed but Hiro wasn't rushing the results, or trying to streamline the process like Krei had. But that didn't make each failed result any less frustrating. What Krei had done with billions of dollars, countless hours and years and scientists researching, Hiro was attempting to do with some little machine he had built in the garage. Observation first obviously. Nest, as Hiro had named the device, it would hook up to his laptop and he would input the corresponding information causing the machine to project the results in a neat, easy to understand, 3-D hologram. Its swirling pink, orange, purple and numerous other colours were beautiful to watch until they ruptured. They would probably look even nicer if the room was dark but the blazing sun wouldn't allow that, even with the curtains drawn and the door shut. Although the door was closed to avoid someone freely walking in and asking what was that machine Hiro had.

  Socorro had been amazed at first, marvelling at all of the different colours and shapes but had grown bored when Hiro continuously ignored her questions or gave her answers that were too complicated to understand. Besides, she couldn't even touch the fluffy pink cloud that was coming out of the tiny machine!

    " _Pero este invención no es esp-es-pec-ta-cu-lar."_ She pouted, using the word that she had heard Miguel use for Baymax, carefully sounding out. She likes Baymax. She did not like this invention. 'But this invention isn't spe-spect-ta-cu-lar.'

  Hiro looked up, trying to not take offence even as that struck a nerve and typed at the translator. _"Pues, ¿qué seria espectacular?"_ He asked. 'Well, then what would be spectacular?'

 _"¡Baymax!"_ She replied automatically, sitting up and bouncing on the bed. Hiro had the biggest 'seriously' look in history. For once could he be liked more than the marshmallow robot?

  "Baymax uh..." Hiro hesitated, trying to think of an excuse. Baymax...Baymax didn't exactly know that Hiro had brought Nest with him. Actually, Baymax didn't know about Nest at all, hell no one did. If his friends found out that he was messing with that thing-well Hiro was fairly certain that they wouldn't like it. So he couldn't risk Baymax finding out and accidentally telling someone. He typed out an excuse. " _Baymax no tiene batería."_ He lied 'Baymax doesn't have battery.'

  Coco's smile instantly fell. " _¡Pero!”_ Hiro added, struggling to think of an excuse. 'But!' He sighed, typing. " _Pero me puedes ayudar aquí, si quieres_." He offered. He accepted that he wasn't going to get any work done, at least for today. 'But you can help me here if you want.'

  She lit up once more. _"¡¿Enserio?!"_ She exclaimed. 'Seriously?!' Hiro nodded and ushered her over. She kept off the bed and ran over to Hiro's air mattress, nearly stepping on Dante's tail in the process. "¿ _Que hago_?" She asked, plopping down next to him. 'What do I do?'

  " _Empujes ese botón."_ he instructed, pointing to a key on his laptop. 'Push that button.' Ever so gingerly she pushed said key, looking up at him expectantly. He nodded and gave her a smile. " _Ahora empujes este botón_." he said. 'Now push this button.' He continued to give her four more keys to push before he told her to hit enter.

  A simulation of an explosion appeared on the hologram, causing her to giggle. He had already written down the failed sequences on the notebook that he had on his lap so he could just keep giving her failed trials to entertain her. And while in real life that would **not** have been a desired result, he laughed along with her.

    "¡ _Esto-esto me recuerda de un programa de televisión que vio!"_ She smiled, looking up at the hologram which had gone back to its trial form, showing the portal in its stable state. 'This-this reminds me of a television show that I watch!'

   _"¿De qué se trata la programa?"_ Hiro asked, it was adorable how excited she looked, eyes lit up like it was Christmas. 'What's the show about?'

 _"¡Es sobre espacio!"_ She exclaimed, seeming proud about the fact. 'It's about space!' She began to rattle off in as detailed a summary of the show as a five year old child could, accompanying it with many sound effects. Hiro learned that Coco had a profound love of outer space, not just the show she spoke of. She told him of different constellations and galaxies that her brother and her cousin Honey Lemon had taught her about and proudly announced that she was going to be an astronaut. She carefully sounded out each constellation name and astronomy term as if mispronouncing it would be blasphemy.

    He found that he enjoyed how she talked about the topic with such fervour, it reminded him of when he would explain one of his new inventions to his friends. Hiro knew that look, no matter how many times Socorro would talk about it she would always do so animatedly, as if each time she spoke of it only served to remind her why she loved it.

    After her very detailed discussion she got off the bed and pulled at Hiro's hand, demanding that he go see the different space posters she had in her room. Hiro, unable to refuse, shut off Nest and put it back in his suitcase, he shut down his laptop and put it atop of the desk before thinking better of it and putting it in the suitcase as well. He did **not** want to risk Baymax activating and knocking it to the floor. Coco, bouncing in her place and growing impatient, tugged at Hiro's hand again, trying to pull him along. Hiro chuckled and gave in, allowing for the girl to pull him along. Her room was opposite to Miguel's. Dante, sensing adventure, trotted along behind the two.

    Coco made a fanfare noise, flourishing to the room as if it were a kingdom made of precious metals and jewels. The room had been painted very carefully, and recently by the looks of it. The walls were a swirl of purple and dark blue, the colours spiralling together in a mock of how they did in space. Countless glow in the dark stars littered said walls and Hiro could only imagine what it looked like at night. As promised, there were various space themes posters on the walls as well.

    One had brightly coloured characters in battle poses, Hiro guessed that those were the characters from the show that Socorro had been talking about. Another appeared to be a poster announcing some sort of astronomy show. There were a handful more featuring the solar system, shooting stars, black holes, and different constellations. On the somewhat messy floor, aside from stray articles of clothing, dolls, and toys, there were drawing either mimicking said posters or featuring the owner of the room fulfilling her dream of becoming an astronaut. Supposedly there were two types of children, the dinosaur kids or the space kids. Socorro was the poster child for space kids. Dante leapt onto the purple bed, resuming his nap.

    Hiro realized that Coco was looking up at him expectantly and typed into the translator. " _¡Se ve_ espectacular _, tu cuarto es bien lindo_ _¡_ " He complimented sincerely, echoing her favourite word. 'It looks _spectacular_ , your room is very pretty!'

  Socorro smiled a huge, missing a single tooth, smile. " _¡Gracias! Miguel ayudo a pintarlo_." She gave a curtsy and almost lost her balance before dissolving into giggles. 'Thanks! Miguel helped paint it.' Her laughter died out as she stared up at Hiro, head tilted curiously as she watched him, eyes trained on his face.

  Cautiously he typed something out, not sure if he wanted to know the answer. " _No…ah-¿no tengo nada en mi cara o pelo verdad?"_ He asked slowly.

  Oh lord if there was some kind of Mexican cobra dropping down from the ceiling into his head...Well at least then he could give GoGo a big fat 'I told you so' from beyond the grave. 'I don't...ah-I don't have anything on my face or hair right?'

  She shook her head before beaming. " _No tienes nada, pero tu pelo...tu pelo es muy lindo_." She smiled. 'You do have anything (on you), but your hair...your hair is very pretty.'

    _"Ah, gracias."_ He thanked, not sure how else to respond. Hiro had let his hair loose some time while going through sequences with Coco.

    _"¡Quiero peinarte!"_ She gasped, as if the idea was the greatest n the world, she practically jumped up and down at the idea. 'I want to brush you!'

    "Ah..." Now Hiro _really_ had no idea how to respond. It was rare when he brushed his hair, so proven by this morning, and usually just put it into a messy up-do with the minimal amount of effort of just wore a hat. So for Coco wanting to brush his hair so enthusiastically?

    _"¿Por favooor?"_ She pleaded. Great they were back at the stretched out words. " _Rosa deja que yo hago su pelo pero ella está en la escuelaaaa."_ 'Pleaaaase? Rosa lets me do her hair but she's at schoooool.' she even threw in a pair of puppy dog eyes and a pout. Cheater.

  Hiro sighed in defeat and typed out his answer. Coco was grinning before he even read it. " _Okay, ¿dónde quieres que me siento?"_ He asked since the dog had taken over the bed. 'Okay, where do you want me to sit?'

  She gave a little fist pump at her victory causing Hiro to chuckle even though he was doomed, before she pointed the fuzzy blue and purple bean bag in the corner. Coco then went over to her tiny vanity table and started rummaging through the drawers, pulling out a brush, hair ties, and several star hair clips.

    Yeah, he was doomed.

 

  Miguel sighed in relief as he reached the entrance to his house, ready to lie on his bed and take a nap until Papa Hector himself came to wake him up. His teachers had warned him that this semester was going to be the most difficult since he only had a few months left but still! He was a senior damnit, couldn't they cut him some slack? But no, instead they were even more vicious with homework and tests and projects and whatever other written out standardized bullcrap that they could give him. Because hey, if you weren't good at art or sports it wasn't your fault but if you had trouble memorizing the entire periodic table in a week or didn't understand algebra? Oh no, then you were in big trouble. School wanted you to be original until you stop fitting the cookie cutter all students got jammed into.

    Anyway, school rants aside.

  His father greeted him when Miguel came into the kitchen, looking for some sort of snack only to be reminded that his mother had said that she needed to go grocery shopping. " _Hola mijo, ¿cómo te fue en la escuela?"_ Enrique asked. 'Hi son, how did school go?'

    Miguel groaned in response, shutting the refrigerator door and grabbing some semi stale crackers from the pantry. Dante ran over and jumped up, begging for his attention. Miguel sat down on the kitchen floor, giving his spirit guide permission to slobber all over his face, it was odd that Dante hadn't been waiting for him outside of the house like he always did.

    _"¿Tan mal fue?"_ Enrique chuckled. 'It was that bad?' Miguel nodded, head heavy. _"Tu mai fue al supermercado pero va a regresar pronto y va a necestiar ayuda con la compra."_ Enrique regrettably informed him. 'Your mom went to the supermarket but she'll be back soon and she'll be needing help so the groceries.'

    " _Si, si, entiendo_." Miguel sighed, trying to keep Dante from eating his crackers. 'Yeah, yeah, I get it.' _"¿Y cómo fue tu día, que hiciste?"_ He added, trying to keep up the conversation. 'And how was your day, what'd you do?'

    Enrique grinned. _"Yo estaba enseñando a Hiro como hacer zapatos."_ He replied, pride bleeding into his words. 'I was showing Hiro how to make shoes.'

  Miguel poorly hid a laugh behind his hand, imagining what that must have been like. Sure, Hiro was this big shot inventor/genius from San Fransokyo, but Miguel _knew_ how difficult shoemaking was, even for someone who had been surrounded by it all his life. _"¿Y cómo se fue eso?"_ He quickly ate his crackers to prevent Dante from eating them. 'And how did that go?'

    " _Ah...fue un...experiencia."_ Enrique replied with an awkward chuckle. " _Pero con tiempo él se va mejorando. Iba a ensenarlo más pero él esta ciudadano a Socorro_." He explained. ' Ah...it was an...experience. But with time he'll get better. I was going to teach him more but he's taking care of Socorro.'

  Miguel quirked an eyebrow sceptically. Hiro? Taking care of a little kid? Yeah, nothing that could go wrong there. Sure, he had made the guy breakfast but that didn't mean that he was going to let him take care of his little sister so readily. Oh crap if they were in his room there was going to be hell to pay. Dante, who could no longer get his crackers, was now pulling at his pant leg, trying to pull him somewhere.

    At this point Miguel had learned better than to not listen to his spirit guide when he was trying to lead him.

 _"Voy a chequear como están."_ He offered, getting up from the floor. Dante ran around his legs, urging him along. 'I'm going to check how they are.'

    " _Okay, creo que están en su cuarto._ " Enrique said.

    Mierda. Miguel picked up his pace and threw his door open. They weren't there. Dante was sniffing at the door of his sister's room which was open the tiniest crack. Sneaking on his tip toes he peered through the crack.

    _"¿Puedo hacer tus uñas después?”_ Coco asked Hiro. ‘Can I do your nails after?'

  Hiro stopped blowing at her drying nails to type his answer. " _Vamos a ver._ No, Cass I was talking to Coco. Yes, the translator is working fine." 'We'll see' He rarely ever used nail polish, it wasn't very practical for all the hand work he did but when he did use it he likes how it looked. He wasn't sure if the family would be too open about him using it though, Honey Lemon had never said if the Riveras were conservative or not. He had his cellphone trapped between his shoulder and his ear.

  Meanwhile, Miguel was trying not to give himself away by laughing. Hiro's hair was done up in pigtails, _pigtails_ , with Coco's favourite hair ties, the ones that had shiny, little, pink, fabric shooting stars hanging off them, and multi-coloured star hair clips picking his bangs up from his face, save for some rebellious strands. Hiro was sitting on the atrocious beanbag in the corner and Socorro was seated in front of him, back to the door. Hiro hadn't spotted him yet, too busy multitasking with Socorro's nails and speaking on the phone.

    "Cass, really everything is going fine! Yes, the people are very nice. Yes, even the one I was telling you about yesterday-oh don't say I told you so I swear!"

    Nearly trembling from holding back his laughter, Miguel pulled his phone from his pocket, unlocked it and clicked on the camera button. Yes, he had promised himself that he was going to be nicer to Hiro but regardless of what had happened the other day Miguel could _not_ resist such a golden opportunity. He snapped the pictures on quick succession, mentally swearing that he would send some to Honey. Hiro, still oblivious to the intruder, continued blowing at Coco's nails to dry them faster and chatting.

    After at least twenty photos Miguel looked at the camera roll, scrolling through the pictures and nearly dying. Some had turned out somewhat blurry but most were perfect. Hiro talking to Coco, hair on perfect display. The boy looking to the side or down at Socorro's nails. But one of the last pictures he had taken was perfect. Hiro was nearly looking right at the camera and smiling softly and...Hiro's smile actually looked nice when it was sincere like this, unguarded, open. It wasn't just his mouth that was smiling, his whole face lit up, his eyes, whether it was because of the lighting or not, seemed to shine. Miguel found himself smiling back at the image. You know, in the certain lighting that the photo had...Hiro...he actually looked kind of-

    " **Miguel!** " Hiro screeched, finally spotting the boy and nearly dropping the phone in surprise. " **I swear to god if you took a picture I'm making you eat that phone!!** "

  Miguel's answer was to run.

 

  So it turns out that the Rivera family had a tradition that Hiro could finally get behind. They would have a movie night and tonight, probably under the suggestion of Honey Lemon, the movie was going to be one of the classics. At least according to the family. Now it was no secret that Hiro adored classic movies, especially of the horror genre. Aunt Cass was probably the one to blame (or thank) for that. And he needed a good movie to wash away the embarrassment that he had suffered after he had chased Miguel around the entire house and around the zapatería in star adorned pigtails trying to get the phone back while Miguel had laughed maniacally. He had taken off the pigtails since then. Although even with how mortifying the whole situation had been he couldn't help but smile as he recalled the event. But Hiro also couldn't deny the thoughts of revenge going through his head at the moment while Enrique set up the movie. Most-but not all, of the family was settled in the living room, Berto and Carmen were taking Benny and Manny to their flute lessons.

  They had gotten pizza takeout to eat while they watched the movie so Hiro munched on that while he waited for the movie to get set up. The sitting arrangement was made up of two sofas. Franco, Abuelita Elena, Enrique and Luisa on one. Rosa, Socorro, Hiro and Miguel on the other, Abel had chosen to sit on the floor. While Socorro had been shy up in first meeting Hiro, she was now completely enamoured as she sat next to him, going on and on about how prettily he had painted her nails. Miguel had snickered and she had yelled back at her brother with a _"¡Por lo menos él no pinto casi mi mano completo como tu hiciste la última vez!"_ Causing Hiro to all but die of laughter. 'At least he didn't paint almost my whole hand like you did last time!'

  Along with painting her nails Hiro had also done her hair, twin braids in fact, purple bows with silver star print holding them in place, which she still wore. Hiro had gone red when Luisa had complimented him on both Coco's hair and his own. While Hiro knew that his pigtails had been odd he could swear that the whole family had done a double take upon seeing Socorro for some reason. Then again he didn't know that with the braids she was a splitting image of the younger late great grandma Coco.

 _"¡Ya, está listo!"_ Enrique said triumphantly, taking his place in the couch beside his wife. 'Okay, it's ready!" He had finished hooking up the DVD player to the TV. They would disconnect it when not in use so the children couldn't mess with it.

    The movie in question? Critters. Hiro had seen the movie once long ago, only once but he hadn't seen the sequels. While he loved horror movies he always found those puff balls so damn disturbing. Maybe it was the creepy ass smile they had, or just the teeth in general. Whatever the reason, those fuzzy testicles with teeth creeped him out. Hiro smiled at Brad's homemade firecrackers, he had made his own version after seeing the movie-or had tried to at least, it had resulted with his and Tadashi's eyebrows singed off. Aunt Cass had scolded them both so much, after taking pictures of course. To embarrass them when they got older she had said.

  He was worried that Socorro might find the movie too frightening but she actually laughed at parts of the film, even when one of the fuzzy crites attacked April's boyfriend. Then again that could be because prior to that, when things had gotten steamy between the teenagers in the barn Hiro had covered the little girl's eyes causing her to giggle and shoo them out of her way. Nope, scratch that. She was laughing at the crite half eating Steve. Hiro had never feared a child more.

  There was a tap on his shoulder, momentarily scaring the shit out of him. Miguel smirked at the slight jump before he pointed at Hiro's pocket and made a texting motion. Hiro have him a puzzled look. Was he asking for the translator? He passed it over to him and Miguel quickly typed something out and passed it back to him.

  " _No te preocupes, a Coco le encanta los películas de horror, no se asusta fácilmente."_ The screen read with the translation underneath. 'Don't worry, Coconut loves horror movies, she doesn't get scared easily.' Hiro snorted at the literal translation of Coco's nickname. So his concern had been that easy to read huh?

  Hiro entered a reply and passed it back over to Miguel, only taking his eyes off the screen for a few seconds. The critter had made the mistake of eating a firecracker.

  "Well excuse me for not wanting to scar the child for life." The screen said with the Spanish translation under that.

  Now it was Miguel's turn to huff out a laugh, typing his answer and passing it back like they were passing notes in the middle of class.

  "No importa que esto es prácticamente un versión de la película Lilo y Stitch, ¿verdad?" Hiro could barely keep from shouting at Miguel for that revelation. 'It doesn't matter that this is practically a version of the movie Lilo and Stitch right?' Aliens escaping from a prison and going to Earth, a pair of bounty hunter trying to get them back. Holy fuck. Hiro's entire life was now a lie.

  "I fucking hate you." Was written on the screen when Hiro passed it back to Miguel with its translation underneath.

  Miguel burst out laughing before covering his mouth, still giggling behind it. Hiro's mouth quirked in a smile. Okay, so maybe when Miguel wasn't laughing at him specifically his laugh may, kind of, sound nice. It was an odd thing for him to notice but he couldn't help but to.

    They continued watching the movie while passing the device back and forth, talking of different things and Hiro complaining that Miguel had ruined his childhood. Hiro spoke of his love for classic movies, especially horror, Miguel loved horror movies, romantic comedies and musicals. From then Hiro teased Miguel over the stories that Enrique had told him as they had made shoes. And Miguel returned the favour by teasing Hiro over his failure at making shoes. There were a few jump scares that had them almost clinging to each other before laughing at their silliness. Hiro was almost surprised with how quickly the movie had ended, then again he had been distracted by the friendly banter he had with Miguel, and he wanted to chuck a couch cushion at the screen with how it ended on a cliff hanger. He so wanted to watch the second movie now and argue with Miguel who kept pointing out the different things he noticed and theories but Enrique shut off the TV and reminded Rosa and Miguel that they had class and that the rest of the family had work in the morning.

  Dante, getting up from where he had been lying on the floor between the boys legs, stretched and yawned apparently agreeing with the idea of it being bedtime.

    Coco began complaining that she wanted to stay up watching movies with Hiro. Luisa reminded need her daughter that Miguel had class in the morning to which Socorro replied " _Él no tiene que ver la película_." 'He doesn't need to watch the movie.' Miguel began a whole dramatic show of how hurt he was while everyone else laughed, especially Hiro.

    After talking Coco into agreeing to go to bed, Luisa, Enrique, and the rest of the family dispersed from the living room and got ready for bed. There was a line for the bathroom to brush teeth and whatnot but Hiro didn't mind, it gave him a chance to yell and run after Miguel after the boy had decided to hide behind the bedroom door and scare the ever living daylights out of him. Then they were both running from Abuela Elena who scolded them for running in the house.

    Finally, everyone was settled into bed. Hiro had been considering working some more with Nest but it wouldn't be fair to Miguel who needed to sleep. Ironically, it appeared as if Miguel didn't want to sleep.

  " _Hirooooo, no puedo dormir."_ He complained after spending a grand total of fifteen minutes trying to sleep. 'Hirooooo, I can't sleep.' Hiro now saw where Coco got her whining skills from.

  Hiro sighed at the dark room and nearly burned his retinas out as his eyes got adjusted to the translator screen. The sound of slacking filled the room briefly, Miguel waited patiently.

  _"¿Que, la película te asusto demasiado?"_ Hiro cooed as if Miguel was a small child that needed to be comforted. 'What, the movie scared you too much?'

  Miguel chucked the pillow at him, reflexes quick due to being part of a superhero team Hiro dodged it and threw it back. Hiro didn't miss and gave a satisfied smirk when it hit the boy in the face dead centre. Dante, tuckered out, gave zero shits at their childish play.

  _"No es eso, idiota, no puedo dormir porque estoy demasiado animado."_ Miguel said matter of factly. 'It's not that, idiot, I can't sleep because I'm too energized.'

 _"¿Quieres que Baymax te canta una canción de cuna?"_ He asked. 'Do you want Baymax to sing you a lullaby?'

  _"¿Él puede hacer eso?”_ Miguel gaped, he practically had stars in his eyes. ‘He can do that?'

  _"¡No!"_ Hiro laughed. _"¡Baymax es un robot avanzado, él no te va a cantar una canción!”_ 'No! Baymax is an advanced robot, he's not going to give you a lullaby!'

 _"¡Oye, no me engañas así!"_ He pouted. 'Hey, don't mess with me like that!'

 _“Lo siento, no pudo resistirlo."_ Hiro chuckled. _"¿Asique como tu quiere que te ayudo a dormir_?"  'Sorry, I couldn't resist. So how do you want me to help you go to sleep?'

  Miguel shrugged. " _Honey me he contado de como tú eres un inventor, un genio prácticamente, cuéntame de en qué trabajas ahora."_ 'Honey has told me that you're an inventor, practically a genius, tell me about what you're working on now.'

    Hiro scoffed. _"Primero que nada, yo he trabajado mucho para solo ser llamado 'prácticamente un genio’."_ He began. "* Segundo...*" His hands froze over the keypad.'

  First of all, I've worked a lot to only be called 'practically a genius.' Second-'...Second what. Could be tell Miguel about Nest, about his portal plans? Would he automatically tell his cousin about it? He didn't want to lie so he opted for the short answer.

    _"Segundo, es un secreto y como quiera, no creo que lo entendieras aunque lo explique."_ Hiro finished. 'Second, it's a secret and anyway, I don't think you'd understand it even if I explained it.'

 _"Yo soy confiable y bueno con secretos. Y no soy solamente una cara linda, chinchilla."_ He coaxed, interest peaked. 'I'm trustworthy and good with secrets. And I'm not just a pretty face, chinchilla.'

    Hiro rolled his eyes at both the nickname and the 'pretty face' comment. _"¿Seguro? Lo más probable es que te aburres."_ He asked. 'You sure? More than likely it'll bore you.'

 _"Ya te dije que quiero escuchar sobre en que tu estas trabajando."_ He pressed, exasperated. 'I already told you that I want to hear about what you're working on.'

  _"Es sobre diferente dimensiones, no creo que tu sepas sobre cosas así."_ Hiro pointed out. 'It's about different dimensions, I don't think that you know about things like that.'

    Sure, different dimensions, Miguel and Dante shared a look, they wouldn't know annnnything about that sort of thing. _"Pruébame.”_

    'Try me.'

    Hiro paused, one hand he promised that he would say anything about his project until he had something concrete to present. But on the other Hiro always worked better after verbally talking about an invention, as if hearing himself speak of it and someone else giving their point of view would help him sort his thoughts and see the flaws in his design. And...he wanted to show off.

    He got off the bed and crawled over to the suitcase next to it, and pulled out his laptop and Nest before he could have any second thoughts. He turned on the laptop and it loaded in a few seconds, Hiro began hitting some keys and ignoring Miguel's questions of _"¿Qué haces?"_ And _"¿Qué es eso?"_ He switched Nest on and the 3 -D hologram of the portal in its stable state filled the air between Hiro's and Miguel's beds. Miguel's reaction was priceless, he gaped and looked at the projection in wonder, marvelling at the rosy coloured cloudlike beauty. The holographic universe slowly swirled, its clouds twisting this way and that.

 _"Mi prima...ella me conto de esto, del portal pero ella nunca entro, nunca vio-¿tu haz entrado este mundo?"_ Miguel said slowly and carefully as if talking too loudly would cause the image to collapse. 'My cousin…she told me about is, about the portal but she never entered, never saw-you entered this world?'

    Miguel wasn't a stranger to alternate worlds and universes or to the beauties that they could hold. The Land of the Dead had been loud, beautiful, colourful, lively (irony), and festive and had left him entranced. This image of a world lost was quiet, a few colours that blended together, and had nothing concrete, no sign of life, but it was still stunning. And the way that the pink, purple, golden light filled his room like a trapped sunset was gorgeous. The swirls shimmered slightly as if they were coated in star dust and it was only when he reached out a hand to touch them was he reminded that they weren't really there. But still, he ran his fingers through the hologram, imagining what it would be like to be there, what the atmosphere would be like. While it was so unlike the Land of the Dead it left him breathless. Land of the Dead had made him high with its energy. This left him stunned with its beauty.

    Hiro was silent as he watched Miguel look at the projection and felt a twinge of a smile tug at his lips. So rockstar boy wasn't just impressed by robots after all.

  He had experienced the first sense of awe upon entering the portal for the first time, only for a second of course before he had to focus on the mission so it was nice to see someone else's reaction to it. "What do you think?"

 _"Increíble."_ Was the only thing that Miguel could get out.

    There was the sound of typing for a moment, the only noise in the room save for Dante’s snoring. " _Cree esta máquina para ver los diferentes reacciones que el portal tiene en diferentes condiciones, para ver cómo puedo recrearlo."_ He explained. 'I created this machine to see the different reactions that the portal has in different conditions, to see if I can recreate it.'

  He hit some computer keys and a few seconds later the image stretched and folded in on itself before showing an explosion that resembled the supernovas that Miguel had seen on those NASA videos with Coco. _"Para asegurar que algo hace no pase."_ Hiro continued. 'To make sure that something like that doesn't happen.'

    Miguel looked through the image of the explosion to Hiro's face, bright orange and gold lighting illuminating his porcelain skin. _"Enséñame lo que tienes hasta ahora."_ He asked. 'Show me what you have so far.' 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm tired as hell, I live off of comments and kudos, and coffee. Tea as well although I haven't had tea in a while.  
> Please let me know what you think!  
> CRITTERS IS THE CREEPIEST MOVIE IN THE WORLD, I'VE SEEN IT AND ALIENS AND WINCHESTER AND SHIT LIKE THAT BUT CRITTERS CREEPS ME THE FUCK OUT! LIKE NO, KILL IT WITH FIRE! FRED! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!!   
> I usually make these notes a lot longer and I KNOW I had something to say but I forgot, I've been proof-reading since forever, fight me. I've been listening to the song Legally Blonde on loop, don't now for how long but it's on its 37 run.


	4. How To Not Stab a Bitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiro was a damn good inventor to only have a bunch of girls who didn't even know him just talk about his looks. Stupid airheads. Did they even know how intelligent Hiro was or all the scientific accomplishments he had done over the years? No, they were just going off about how he looked. They didn't even know anything about him, didn't even-Miguel caught himself. What the fuck was he saying? 'They didn't know anything about him' He had only known him for two days! He couldn't exactly say that he knew him either. Why the hell was he ticked? No, he was not jealous, he had never really cared about who the girls thought who was hot and who was not.  
>  But for them to look over Hiro's ingenuity and only focus on his looks? That ticked Miguel off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW HAS IT BEEN ALMOST TWO MONTHS ALREADY? Wait... *checks watch* IT'S BEEN ALMOST TWO MONTHS?!?!?!?!?! OH MY GOD I'M TERRIBLE!!!!!!   
> I wish that I could blame this entirely on school but I didn't start school until August 13 so...I take full responsibility. I had really bad writer's block as well as personal problems. That combined with just good old fashioned lack of motivation isn't a very good writing base.   
> ANYWAY  
> HIRO HAS ONLY HAD SOCORRO FOR LESS THAN THREE DAYS BUT IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO HER SHIT IS GUNNA GO DOWN

  Hiro woke to the sound of a loud thudding, cursing, scrambling around and Dante barking. Half dead he cracked open an eye to glare at the direction that the noise was coming from, Miguel's bed. He didn't know what time it was but he was pretty sure that it was at least half past way too early for this bullshit o'clock. Hiro groaned and threw his pillow in Miguel's general direction "Shut uuuuuup."

    " _¡_ _PERDON PERO VOY TARDE_ _¿OKAY?!_ " He shouted back, throwing the pillow back and hitting Hiro squarely in the face and smiling for half a second before he was scrambling off the bed, tripping off the end and beautifully faceplanting, all while cursing colourfully. 'SORRY BUT I'M RUNNING LATE, OKAY?!'

  Miguel wasn't going to have time to shower, hell, he was barely going to have time to get dressed! He tugged off his sleepwear, Dante tugged on his pyjama pant leg in an effort to help him out of it. Miguel yanked his shirt off over his head, further messing up his bedhead.

  "Dude! I don't need to see that! Go change in the bathroom!!" Hiro screamed at him, shielding his eyes with one hand and chucking the pillow back at Miguel blindly.

  " _¡_ _No tengo tiempo para cambiarme en el baño_ _!_ " He yelled, throwing the offending pillow back at Hiro who was still covering his eyes. Miguel wasn't embarrassed at his semi naked state in the slightest; something that was part of having a large family: No privacy. 'I don't have time to change in the bathroom!'

  He changed into his school uniform -yes, his high school used uniforms- in under a minute, made a quick pass with deodorant and body spray and rolled his eyes at Hiro who was still covering his own. " _¡Ya tengo ropa, Espantapájaro! ¡Y tu deberías considérate con suerte que pudiste ver esto de gratis!_ " He said matter of factly, gesturing up and down at himself.

  'I already have clothes on Scarecrow! And you should consider yourself lucky that you got to see this for free!'

  Hiro, who didn't have the translator turned on, had no clue what the fuck Miguel was saying and didn't get a chance to ask before Miguel grabbed his backpack and sprinted out of the room, Dante yapping behind him.

    " _¡_ _Lo siento que no puedo hacerte desayuno hoy_ _!_ ” Miguel called behind him. ‘I'm sorry that I couldn't make you breakfast today.' Hiro only understood 'I'm sorry' and 'breakfast'.

  Miguel nearly skidded into Abuelita Elena who was sweeping the floor in the hallway. _"¿¡Miguelito!? ¿¡Que haces aquí todavía!? ¡Creí que ya estabas en la escuela!"_ She accused. 'Miguelito!? What are you still doing here!? I thought you were already at school!'

 _"¡Me levante tarde!"_ He explained. 'I woke up late!'

 _"¿¡Pues porque estas aquí hablando!? ¡Lárgate!"_ She yelled at him, whacking him with the broom. 'Then why are you here talking!? Go!'

  Miguel yelped and ran, Abuelita’s aim with a broom was nearly as deadly as Abuelita’s aim with a shoe.

  _“¡Y tú! ¡Lárgate también!"_ She shouted at Dante, shooing him away. Dante ran back to the room.

  Berto's car was broken so the whole family now only had one car, since Rosa's college was kind of far the car was used in the morning to get her and the twins to school, which was fine, Miguel's high school was well within walking distance so he had been walking every morning. But today when he was running late? Miguel wasn't one to oversleep, but hell, he was deadass tired. And for good reason too.

  How long had he spent talking to Hiro about the portal and project Nest last night?

  Running through town, not taking his time to look at the sights like he usually did, he got to the school entrance right when the final bell rang. _"Mierda, mierda, mierda."_ He swore under his breath.

  The whole classroom looked at him when Miguel burst into the classroom, one hand clutching the door frame and the other on his chest as he sucked in lungful after lungful of sweet oxygen, doubled over slightly as he caught his breath before he straightened and walked calmly to his desk as if nothing had happened. His faint panting was the only evidence that anything had. I

  The teacher, unfazed, just gave a simple _"Que bueno que nos pudiste agraciar con su presencia."_ before going through the attendance list. 'Nice of you to grace is with your presence.'

    Miguel took his seat near the middle of the class, close enough to see but not close enough to be called on regularly. He had a habit of daydreaming during the morning classes but he always kept his grades level and did his work. Usually his daydreams would be of what his life as a musician would be like, or new song ideas, he didn't have quite the knack for song writing as his grandfather but he wasn't terrible at it either.

    But no, today his mind was shifting toward last night and the different things that Hiro and he had talked about. Hiro had shown him the different failed simulations that he had gone through, what he thought the properties of the portal were like, and how he thought it worked. The gringo had spoken of how a woman had survived in a pod in a sleep like state with next to no side effects and how he thought learning about the portal would be useful in the field of science and medicine. Hiro's face had lit up, not just by the light of the projection, but by the enthusiasm with which he explained, and the curiosity and wonder that leaked into his voice despite how long had worked on it.

    While Miguel was not an expert like the Chinchilla he took pride in how he had been able to follow along with what Hiro had said. He had even offered a few ideas of his own, ironically Hiro had already done all of his ideas but hey, at least Miguel had been able to contribute...sort of. Dante had fallen asleep ten minutes into their talk that had lasted far longer than either of them had meant to. The result was Miguel's current zombielike state.

    Still, he didn't really regret it, it was-it had been fun in an odd way. Miguel wasn't as interested in science as Hiro but talking with him had been nice. Seeing how excited Hiro got when he explained the portal was also...nice.

    Just -seeing Hiro in his element, like Miguel had seen him when he had painted Coco's nails, or during the movie, not acting as skittish or nervous as he had been. But this time he had been the only one there to see Hiro in his element. Did that make him special or something? Nah, his sister and parents had done that too. But...but this time it had only been him.

    Miguel stifled a groan and lowered his head onto the desk with a dull thump and prayed that the teacher didn't notice. He was too tired for this bullshit.

  A paper ball hit him in the head and he just blamed it on the usual assholes without looking up, it had probably been Marco. Another wad of paper hit him, this time accompanied with a hushed 'Psst!' It was too high pitched to be Marco, meaning it was one of the girls or Anthony.

    He turned his head over to see who the assailant was only to get a paper ball directly in the face followed by an 'Opps.' Yep, it was Anthony, his next door desk neighbour and one of his closest friends.

  _"¿Estas vivo?"_ Anthony whispered teasingly. 'You alive?'

    Miguel shook his head 'no'. The teacher looked his way, eyebrow raised in warning and Miguel forced himself to sit up. He cradled his chin in his palm and fought the urge to doze off. According to Honey Lemon, Hiro barely slept and now Miguel was just wondering how the espantapájaro was even alive. The teacher went back to giving the lesson on verb tenses.

    Zero point two seconds after the teacher had turned around Anthony was poking Miguel's arm before pointing to his notebook. He wrote out a note, tore out the page silently with practiced expertise and passed it over to him, reminding Miguel of how Hiro and he had passed the translator back and forth during the movie.

 _Escuché a unas nenas hablando de ti._ The note read. Miguel quirked an eyebrow and wrote a response, passing it back. 'I heard some girls talking about you.'

 _¿Y?_ Was his response. How was that important? 'And?'

  Anthony huffed and scrawled out a reply, obviously irked at Miguel's disinterest. He thrust the page onto Miguel's desk. _Estaban diciendo que tú tienes alguien visitando de halla fuera, alguien 'famoso'._

    Miguel wanted to slam his head into the desk again. 'They were saying that you have someone visiting from our there, someone 'famous'.' Before we could right something his friend stole the paper back, reading the look on Miguel's face like a book. He wrote somewhat messily with speed but it was still legible, besides, Anthony had crazy good handwriting.

 _¿Y NO ME DIJISTE? ¿QUIEN ES? ESCHUCHE UN NOMBRE BIEN RARO POR ALLI, ALGO CON UNA H???_ Now Miguel had to roll his eyes, smiling, he was glad that Anthony was the only friend that he shared class with, if the others were there too then he would be getting interrogated left AND right.

  'AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME? WHO IS IT? I HEARD A WEIRD NAME GOING AROUND, SOMETHING WITH AN H???'

 _Hiro Hamada._ Miguel passed the note back, stifling a laugh at Anthony's frown, apparently he didn't recognize the name. Miguel hasn't expected him to.

    Anthony wrote a reply and passed it back _¿Quién cajaro es Hiro Hamada?_

  Miguel thought for a moment, he didn't know how to answer that. 'Who the fuck is Hiro Hamada?' Miguel tapped the pencil against the corner of his mouth, trying to think of how to reply. He caught Anthony observing him and went for the general answer _. Él es un inventor de San Fransokyo._ He passed the paper back. Judging by Anthony's frown he wasn't pleased with the answer. 'He's an inventor from San Fransokyo.'

 _Yo creí que él era un modelo o algo hace._ The note read when Miguel got it back. Now it was his turn to frown, why the hell would Anthony think that? 'I thought that he was a model or something like that.'

 _¿Porque pensaste eso?_ Miguel couldn't help but write on the paper. 'Why would you think that?'

  It took Anthony a few minutes to reply, writing and erasing several times before selecting what to say. _Pues la única cosa que escuché las nenas diciendo eso como él es que guapo o cosas hace, nunca escuché nada de que él era un inventor._

    That pissed Miguel off. What the hell? 'Well the only thing that I heard the girls saying was how he's so hot and things like that, I never heard anything about him being an inventor.'

   Hiro was a damn good inventor to only have a bunch of girls who didn't even know him just talk about his looks. Stupid airheads. Did they even know how intelligent Hiro was or all the scientific accomplishments he had done over the years? No, they were just going off about how he looked. They didn't even know anything about him, didn't even-Miguel caught himself. What the fuck was he saying? 'They didn't know anything about him' He had only known him for two days! He couldn't exactly say that he knew him either. Why the hell was he ticked? No, he was not jealous, he had never really cared about who the girls thought who was hot and who was not.

   Hiro was a damn good inventor to only have a bunch of girls who didn't even know him just talk about his looks. Stupid airheads. Did they even know how intelligent Hiro was or all the scientific accomplishments he had done over the years? No, they were just going off about how he looked. They didn't even know anything about him, didn't even-Miguel caught himself. What the fuck was he saying? 'They didn't know anything about him' He had only known him for two days! He couldn't exactly say that he knew him either. Why the hell was he ticked? No, he was not jealous, he had never really cared about who the girls thought who was hot and who was not.

    But for them to look over Hiro's ingenuity and only focus on his looks? That ticked Miguel off.

    _Él es un inventor y básicamente un genio para que esas chicas solamente se enfocan en como se ve 'guapo'._ Miguel wrote back, giving the short version of what had gone through his mind, what was still going through it.

  Anthony's eyebrows raised in surprise before nodding as he read the note. 'He's an inventor and basically a genius for those girls to only focus on how he looks 'hot'.' Hiding a smirk behind a fake yawn he wrote an answer and gave it back to Miguel.

 _¿Que, no crees que él puede ser un modelo?_ Miguel could nearly see his brain with how he rolled his eyes, knowing what Anthony was getting at. 'What, you don't think that he could be a model?'

    _Si él es un modelo, yo trabajo en la zapatería._ He replied on the paper, passing it back. 'If he's a model, I work in the shoe shop.' Response drier than the weather outside.

 _:p No es mi culpa que tú siempre puedo encontrar chicos lindos~_ Anthony wrote back. Miguel snorted when he read it. ':p It's not my fault that you can always find cute boys~'

 _Es verdad, mira encontró uno ahora mismo a mi lado_. Miguel teased, using the same response that he always did whenever Anthony would say something like that. 'It's true, look I found one right now by my side.'

    Now Anthony rolled his eyes and made a quiet puking noise before writing. _Voy a estar más papasito todavía cuando soy un adulto y parezco más a un chico.(Pero gracias estúpido)_ 'I'll look even cuter when I'm finally an adult and look more like a boy. (But thanks stupid.)

 _De nada, ¿asique no vas a decir nada a los otros?_ Miguel wrote back, wishing hopefully. 'You’re welcome, so you're not going to say anything to the others?'

    Anthony's smirk as he put away the paper was all the answer that Miguel needed. And it was not the answer he had wanted.

 

    "You traitor! You fucking traitor!" Sofia exclaimed, holding a hand to her chest, mock hurt written on her face.

  Miguel rolled his eyes. It was lunch time and apparently Anthony had texted the rest of their friends during class because they had wasted no time in jumping Miguel and demanding information about his mysterious guest. He hadn't even been seated at the lunch table for two seconds before she had shouted at him. He feigned ignorance. "Whatever did I do this time?" He and his friends often spoke English when it was just them, mostly so other students couldn't eavesdrop.

  "There is a foreigner in your house and you don't bother to tell us?!" Sofia yelled at him. The dull roar that all the chatter of the cafeteria created softened her shouting somewhat.

  "He's a friend of my cousin, not a foreigner." Miguel fought another eye roll.

  "Still!" Mariana squealed. "Isn't it exciting?! I overheard Maria's cousin, Paola, talking about him with the other girls, I heard that he's pretty much a celebrity!"

  "Whatever you heard them saying erase it. All they're saying is basic tabloid trash." Miguel huffed, stabbing his food with his plastic fork. Why the hell was he pissed?

  "Oh~? That's the second time you've gotten angry about this Miguel." Anthony teased, flipping his ponytail over his shoulder.

  "What's Anthony talking about?" Jorge asked, clearly confused.

  "Nothing-" Miguel began only to be cut off by Anthony.

  "Nothing except I was telling Miguel what you guys are talking about earlier during class and he got pretty miffed.~" He chimed.

    "Miffed?" Jorge questioned.

    _"_ _Enojado, se puso enojado."_ Marianna explained. Jorge gave a small 'Oh' in understanding. ‘Annoyed, he got annoyed.’

    "I'm 'miffed' because it's stupid that he's worked really hard, for into this prestigious college at the age of **fourteen** but the bimbos talking about him just focus on 'hot or not'. Not for whatever reason Anthony might be trying to imply." He snapped before sighing. "Sorry, I'm tired and I'm cranky."

    "Why are you tired? You were up practicing again?" Sofia asked.

    Miguel shook his head "No, Hiro kept me up late." He instantly regretted his choice of words as his friends broke out into a chorus of "Oohhhs~". His face turned red and he scowled. "That is _not_ what I meant!"

    "We know, we're only teasing, Miguel." Mariana soothed. "What _were_ you and Hiro doing?"

    "Just...talking." Miguel shrugged. He had promised to keep it a secret after all. "We had watched a horror movie with my family and then we were just talking, I think he got scared and couldn't sleep so we talked for a bit."

    "So you bored him to sleep?" Sofia laughed.

    Miguel was going to gain the ability to see his brain if he kept rolling his eyes. "It's not my fault he has no sense of culture." In reality, Miguel had fallen asleep while Hiro had still been speaking. A fact that he knew was a total douche move. He’d apologize for that at home.

    "Speak of the devil." Anthony hissed, pointing with his eyes to the space behind Miguel.

    He knew that he shouldn't have but he turned around and fought to keep a scowl off his face. Paola and the rest of her posse. He already knew what they wanted before they opened they opened their mouths.

 _"Hola Miguel."_ She greeted, voice coated with a sweetness all too fake. Paola didn't give him a chance to answer. _"_ _Mira, mi prima, María dije que tú tienes alguien **especial** visitándote._ _"_ Right to the point then.

    'Look, my cousin, María said that you have someone *special* visiting you.'

 _"Depende que consideras especial."_ Miguel replied, keeping a neutral expression on his face. 'It depends on what you consider special.' He sincerely hated her. She got off on belittling people and was so plastic that if you lit her on fire she should release toxic fumes into the atmosphere.

 _"No sé mucho sobre él pero busque información de él en el internet y sus_ fotos _eran interesante_." Paola continued, not receiving Miguel's silent message of 'Fuck off'. Uh-huh. Information. Sure.

  'I don't know much about him but I looked up information about him online and his _pictures_ were interesting.'

    Miguel grit his teeth. 'If you want to make an opinion on someone based off their photos go get a Tinder account.' He thought but didn't say, no matter how much he wanted to. Instead he went with. _"¿Y? ¿Que tú quieres que yo te diga?"_ 'And? What do you want me to tell you?'

 _"¿Él tiene una novia?"_ She asked bluntly. 'Does he have a girlfriend?' Anthony snorted and she glared at him, muttering something under breath that sounded suspiciously like “ _Marimacha_ _._ "

 _"Sí, él tiene una novia, estaba hablándome de ella por horas la otra día."_ Miguel said, unable to keep the lie from spilling out of his mouth. 'Yeah, he has a girlfriend, he was talking about her for hours yesterday.' One: even if the chinchilla had been an ass the first day he definitely did not deserve this devil of a woman chasing after him. Two: call Anthony that again and he was going to throw his fucking empanada at her face. Although with all the makeup she had on it would probably stick to her face before sliding down with an imprint of a face on it.

    Miguel would be a filthy liar if he said that the look on Paola's face didn't give him a smug feeling of satisfaction. The rest of her posse was just watching the whole thing go done. Sheep. Stupid sheep.

      "*¿Como se llama?*" She asked as if sensing his lie. 'What's her name?'

      Luckily Miguel was the king of excuses and quick thinking. _"No puedo decirte eso, a ellos le gustan su privacidad, ¿tu entiendes eso verdad?"_ He lied. 'I can't tell you that, they like their privacy, you understand that right?'

    He had no clue if Hiro actually had a girlfriend or not but he knew that he was saving him from a date worse than death by making Paola believe that he did. Besides, if he got some petty revenge on Paola through this then that was just a nice bonus.

 _"Cuéntame sobre ella."_ Paola all but demanded. 'Tell me about her.'

    Miguel could feel his friends’ eyes on him and wanted to shoot them a wink. He could tell that Anthony had caught on as he spotted the smile that he was trying to hide behind his hand. Luckily Paola paid him no mind as she focused her gaze on Miguel. With any luck, what he was telling Paola would circle around the school both ending the rumours and getting the girls to stop asking Miguel about the gringo. Miguel fixed an innocent look on his face. _"Pues..."_ 'Well...'

 

      Miguel had ended up weaving a very detailed and convincing take about Hiro's 'girlfriend' and how they spent their time together. Mostly because he just saying everything that he and Hiro had done, changing his name out of the story for the fake girlfriend. He added a few other fake stories here and there but one thing that remained consistent was him saying how much Hiro loved~ his girlfriend. Luckily before he ran out of lies, Paola had heard enough and stormed off with her group. Anthony had burst into laughter as soon she was out of sight and soon the whole group was in tears after Anthony clued them in.

  The rest of the school day was quiet, uneventful but left Miguel drained none the less. Probably due to his lack of sleep but hey. It was like the closer he was to graduating, the more done with everything he was. He could still see his friends outside of school but he was just ready to _leave_. He was ready to leave behind all of the stupid people like Paola or other bullies that got off on making people feel small. He was ready to leave behind those teachers who snapped at him for going into that little place in his mind where music notes flew in the air and he would catch them and arrange them into a melody.

      But at the same time Miguel wanted to stay. He knew _what_ He wanted to do but no clue how to get it. And while he knew what he wanted to do, he also knew that there were other things waiting for him besides that. And Miguel was not looking forward to those things. He was going to be eighteen, legally an adult...god that shouldn't scare him as much as it did, especially for one who had literally been in the Land of the Dead. But at least the Land of the Dead was carefree, no rules or responsibilities or the feeling of time ticking down on you.

    Miguel sighed and re-shouldered his book bag. Now was not the time to get philosophical or whatever, he should save that for when he had a pen and paper in front of him. He reached the front of his home and immediately noticed that the car was gone, signalling that one or more of his family members had left to pick up the twins and Rosa. At least that would make the house a bit quieter. Yes, he loved his family, but with how many of them that there were it really made him appreciate the quiet moments that he got.

  "Socorro, careful! Don't drop it!" Hiro shouted from inside followed by Socorro squealing.

    "Yeah, forget about quiet time." Miguel muttered. He opened the door and Dante was on him in seconds, barking and jumping as he tried to lick his face.

 _"Hola, Dante."_ Miguel greeted with a tired sigh, bending down and allowing for the spirit guide to slobber his face, trying to the best of his abilities to cheer his Soul up.

   Then, as quickly as he arrived, Dante let out a bark, spun in a circle and raced off in the direction of the kitchen, no doubt looking for food.    Nonetheless, Miguel tossed his sack of boulders-er-backpack onto one of the couches and followed him. His mood instantly brightened upon entering the kitchen. Dante had led him to another priceless scene.

   While not as precious as yesterday’s scene, the sight of Hiro helping Socorro stir a bowl of something while he gave her directions was worth its weight in gold. Hiro also had some flour in his hair and on his face no doubt due to Coco fooling around. There were some additional voices and Miguel spotted Hiro's computer on the counter. Based off the voices, Miguel guessed that Hiro was video chatting with his friends while he worked.

   Socorro became aware of his presence first and her face split into a grin. _"¡Hola Miguel!"_ She chimed from where she was seated on the counter. _"¡Estamos cocinando!"_ she announced proudly. 'We're cooking!'

   " _Ya veo_." Miguel nodded. He was trying to not laugh at the way that Hiro's head had snapped up, eyes widening at being caught in another not so ideal situation. 'I can see.'

   "Hey, is Miguel home?" Honey Lemon called through the screen.

 _"Hola Limonada."_ Miguel greeted, cutting across the counter and sliding next to Hiro (Oh God, Hiro was wearing an apron too! This was too good to be true!) to be within the camera's view. _"¿Que pasa?"_ 'Hi Lemonade, what's up?'

  _"Hiro me estaba contando de que he hecho hasta ahora."_ She replied in her second tongue. 'Hiro was telling me about what he's done till now.'

    “Honey Lemon, I didn’t know that you know French!” Fred exclaimed. Miguel stifled a laugh and Honey fought back the urge to facepalm.

    Hiro's other friends, GoGo, Wasabi, and Fred, Miguel recognized them from when Honey had introduced them from a while back, threw some hellos his way as well. Based on the background, Miguel guessed that they were calling from a bakery of some sort. Miguel waved back in response and continued to chat with his cousin.

 _"¿Ah, de verdad? ¿Cómo qué?"_ Miguel asked, resting his elbow onto the counter, and cradling his chin in his palm as he spoke. All while pretending that he didn't notice Hiro still half glaring at him due to the intrusion. 'Oh, really? Like what?'

 _"Como estaban viendo películas ayer, como tú lo hiciste desayuno que a él se le encanto, ah! Y también estaba diciendo que tú no tienes ningún sentido de decencia con como lo traumatizaste por la mañana."_ Honey laughed. 'How you all were watching movies yesterday, how you made him breakfast which he loved, oh! And he was also saying that you don't have a sense of decency with how you traumatized him this morning.'

 _"¡Se me hizo tarde!"_ He defended, narrowing his eyes at Hiro. 'I was running late!'

    Hiro, who hadn't been working the translator and therefore had no idea what the devil was being said, simply continued to mix the batter with Socorro. He still has no clue where he stood with Miguel. The first day had been bumpy to say the least, the second had been much better. But without a movie or Nest Hiro had no clue what he could talk to him about without running the risk of sounding redundant by just repeating the things that they had already talked about.

    _"¿Ya está listo?"_ Socorro asked curiously, peering down at the silky smooth batter. 'Is it ready?'

    Hiro knew that sentence by memory since she had been asking it since they had started mixing. Still, he pulled the translator out of his pocket and double checked before nodding in response. _"Sí."_

    Socorro gave out a tiny shout of victory, causing Hiro to chuckle as well as Miguel and his friends through the screen. "I'll be back with you guys in a minute, just give me a chance to get this in the oven and kick this one out of the kitchen."

    Miguel fought the urge to roll his eyes, right, Hiro didn't know that he was bilingual and knew just what he meant by 'this one'.

      Hiro pulled out the translator and clacked on the keys while Miguel waited to be kicked out. _"Pásame eso, por favor."_ Hiro said instead, gesturing to the pan next to Miguel. 'Pass me that, please.' He tried not to look too caught off guard and passed said pan over. _"Gracias, ¿quieres ayudar?"_ He continued. 'Thanks, want to help?'

    "Um..." Okay so maybe Hiro had just been joking with his friends and he had taken it seriously after all. _"Okay, sí."_

    Between the three of them they tilted the bowl of batter, slowly filling the pan. Miguel didn't have as much as baking knowledge as Hiro did from helping out Aunt Cass in her bakery so while the batter both looked and smelled familiar, Miguel couldn't quite tell what it was.

 _"Uh, ¿que estamos haciendo?"_ Miguel questioned, setting the now mostly empty bowl back down on the counter. 'Uh, what are we making?' (Could also be ‘What are we doing?’)

    _"¡Tres leches!"_ Socorro piped up, dancing around in her seat. Hiro let out a small laugh and helped her off the counter and onto the floor, mostly to prevent her from accidentally knocking the pan off the counter, or worse, his laptop.

    Her enthusiasm was contagious. _"¡Ah, ¡¿enserio?!"_ Miguel exclaimed _. "¡A mí me encanta Tres Leches, ¿tú sabes cómo hacerlo?!"_ 'Ah seriously!? I love Tres Leches! You know how to make it!?'

    Hiro snorted and typed out a response, reading it aloud. _"Obviamente. Mi tía tiene una panadería y me enseño como hacer unos postres."_ He explained. He turned his attention to Socorro. _"Yo voy a hacer este parte solito, ¿okay? No quiero que te quemes."_ Coco nodded and took a few steps back.

      'Obviously. My aunt runs a bakery and she showed me how to make some sweets. I'm going to this part alone, okay? I don't want you to burn yourself.'

      "Aw, Hiro! Your accent is so cute!" Honey Lemon cooed through the screen as she clapped her hands together, obviously pleased.

    Hiro rolled his eyes and slipped the gloves on with an embarrassed smile on his face. The oven had already been preheating and the hot air from inside tumbled out into the dry climate when Hiro opened the oven and carefully out the pan inside.

    No sooner had he closed it were Coco and Miguel bombarding him with _"¡¿Cuándo va a estar listo?!"_ 'When is it going to be ready?'

 _"Socorro, hay que tener paciencia."_ He told her, fighting back giggles before turning to Miguel. " _Y **tú** vas a esperar en la sala porque Honey ya me dejo de como tu tomaste la mezcla de leche antes y después no quedaba para la receta."_

    'Socorro, you need to be patient. And **_you_** are going to wait in the living room because Honey already told me that you've drunken all the milk mix (I literally do not know how else to call this, that’s basically what it is) before and then there wasn’t any left for the recipe.'

  The mix that Hiro was talking about was a mix of condensed, evaporated and fresh milk that was extremely sweet and would be poured on top of the cake once it was done. In the past Miguel had indeed stolen some of the syrup before the cake was ready and by the time his mother had noticed there wasn't enough left for the cake.

    Miguel pouted and looked at Honey Lemon like the traitor she was. His cousin just shrugged innocently.

 _"Debo sacarte otra foto como ahora que está cubierto en harina."_ Miguel muttered. 'I should take another photo of you now that you're covered in flour.'

    Honey, with her superhuman hearing, quickly chimed in with a "Oh! If you do can you send that picture like you did with yesterday's?"

      "You **_WHAT_**?" Hiro screeched. Miguel was already running out of the kitchen, cackling.

      Making the syrup was postponed in favour of Hiro chasing Miguel around the house yet again.

 

    Miguel had finally washed the flour off his face and hair since that tangle with Hiro inevitably that result. He had decided to take a full-fledged shower while he was at it since He had skipped one that morning and it would help with the heat.

    He could hear from inside the closed bathroom that the twins and Rosa were home from school and in the kitchen as well. The twins talked over each other and in sync with each other as they told Hiro how excited they were about trying the cake. This of course lead to Socorro being incredibly insulted and shouting that she had helped as well while Rosa told her to use her inside voice. Abel had been attracted by all of the chatter and kept asking what was going on. No one gave him an answer. Through it all the sound of Hiro's laughter cut through it all, crisp carefree. Miguel was used to the house being noisy so that last noise shouldn't have registered as clearly as it did.

    Dante was drinking out of the toilet while he waited for Miguel to finish cleaning up, even though the spirit guide had so generously tried to help by licking the flour off his face.

      Blindly reaching for the towel he found it and wrapped it around his waist. He clicked his tongue as he exited the bathroom. _"Vente Dante."_

      The dog trotted after him as Miguel crossed the short distance from the bathroom to his room and shut the door behind the two of them. Miguel quickly got dressed and silently prayed that Hiro wouldn't throw flour on him as he entered the kitchen, Dante on his heels.

 _"¿Se terminó la prohibición?"_ He hummed. 'Is the probation over?'

    Hiro rolled his eyes and typed into the translator that was being far too overworked from all of the different chatter. He had already hung up the video call with his friends due to the noise. Maybe he could add a voice recognizer to it to allow it to tell him who was saying what in moments like this. That would be for later...if he could find parts for it. He had packed extra but still. Then again it could just be a matter of rewriting the sequence. Or maybe - Hiro realized that he had stopped typing and was just staring at the device. Miguel was waiting patiently for his answer from the doorway of the kitchen.

    Fuck it. He sighed and waved him in. Miguel's face split into a victorious grin. Hiro held up a finger, pausing him _. "No toques nada."_ He said in his terribly accented voice that, while Honey Lemon and the others found 'cute', pissed him off to no end. Then again, he was the one who was choosing to speak rather than having the machine speak for him. 'Don't touch anything.'

    Miguel held up his hands in front of him innocently and used one to make a 'cross my heart and hope to die' X over his chest.

  The adults were working in the shoe shop or off on their own things so Hiro had unofficially been placed in charge of the kids and Rosa. The cake was already out of the oven and cooling on the counter and if he had to tell the twins to not touch it one more time he was going to tear out his hair.

    Dante nudged at Miguel's let and gave a little whine, using his nose to point at the gringo. Miguel sighed, taking pity on the Chinchilla and clapped his hands together before hollering _" **¡Mira!** ¡El gri-Hiro va a dar instrucciones!¡Asique si quieres ayudar, callanten y escuchan!"_ While he didn't have as much authority as Rosa, Abel or Hiro did with their age status, Miguel had the voice to make up for it. ' **Hey!** The gri-Hiro is going to give instructions! So if you want to help, be quiet and listen!'

      The kitchen immediately quieted down, although the twins were still giggling and fooling around as they shushed each other. Hiro looked at Miguel, clearly surprised. _"Uh...gracias."_ He managed to get out.

      Miguel nodded and have him a thumbs up. Dante looked up at his Soul, pleased.

      Hiro fiddled with the translator, it was far easier to do so now that transitions weren't bombarding the screen. _"Benny, Manny, Socorro, cogen esas latas y vaso por favor, vamos a usar eso para la mezcla de leches. Rosa, por favor coge ese plato y Abel, una cucara. Y tu-"_ Hiro pointed to Miguel _. "Tú puedes mezclarlo si prometes de no tomar nada."_

    'Benny, Manny, Socorro, get those cans and cup please, were going to use that to make the syrup. Rosa, please get that bowl and Abel, a spoon. And you. You can mix it if you promise to not drink/take any.' (Tomar can mean either drink or take in this context, both meanings work)

    Miguel gave a little half smirk and a salute as everyone went to their assigned tasks. He leaned against the counter as he waited and watched as the kids squabbled, arguing over who would get what and Hiro trying to control the whole situation. Miguel bit back a smile, oh yes, a super suave model indeed, just like the girls said, he thought with an eyeroll.

      Soon it was time for him to mix the concentrated mix of pure sugar and sweetness. The kids ran around the living room with Abel chasing them and Rosa sighed as she watched their buffoonery.

 _"Asique, ¿que hiciste hoy?"_ Miguel asked since it would be pretty awkward if he was just mixing this while Hiro watched. 'So, what did you do today?'

    Hiro cracked on the keys. _"Estaba trabajando con los zapatos otra vez por la mañana,"_ Miguel couldn't help but notice the funny little way that Hiro pronounced the ñ in mañana. " _Y después de almuerzo Socorro quiera estar con migo otra vez, asique para no tener otra situación como ayer, decide hacer un bizcocho."_ Hiro replied, giving in the short answer.

    Miguel burst out laughing so suddenly and strongly that he almost tipped over the bowl that he was mixing the syrup in. His cheeks turned dark with his laughter, actual tears filled the corner of his eyes and he slammed his palm against the counter in repeated succession.

    'I was working with the shoes again this morning. And after lunch Socorro wanted to hang out with me again, but so there wouldn't be a situation like yesterday, I decided to make a- _word that means cake in any Spanish except in Mexico._ ' (Re-read first chapter of you don't remember)

    Hiro, who didn't know this, had no clue why Miguel was practically howling with laughter and gripping the countertop for support. _"¿Que?"_ Hiro asked.

    Miguel couldn't even speak. He motioned for Hiro to hand him the translator, only to break down further when Hiro did and he read what Hiro had said. Hiro drummed his fingers against the countertop as he waited for Miguel to get a hold of himself and explain what was so funny.

    He wiped at his eyes to be able to see the keyboard properly and erased what Hiro had typed to explain to the poor boy what he had accidentally said because there was no way in hell that he was going to be able to verbally explain. He passed the device back to him, laughter under control but giggles still bubbling past his lips. He wasn't mature when it came to things like this okay?

    Hiro quirked an eyebrow but took the machine and read the screen. 'Hiro, the word you're looking for is 'pastel'. 'Bizchoco' does mean cake in some dialects of Spanish but in Mexico it means-' Hiro's face turned an impressive shade of red causing Miguel to laugh once more.

      Hiro punched Miguel in the shoulder, face burning. "I didn't know that!" He shouted and Miguel screamed in his fit of laughter.

      Luisa, who had been in the Zapatería till the all of the ruckus from the house had called her over, was more than a little confused as the kids ran around the living room with Abel, Rosa looked one thousand percent done, and Miguel was crying with laughter as Hiro screamed at him.

 

  Hiro almost regretted making the cake after dinner when everybody kept complimenting him over it. It wasn't that he dent like the compliments, it just felt weird coming from people who were practically strangers. Although the way that the grandma pinched his cheeks and cooed as she complimented his work reminded him of Aunt Cass. Benny, Manny, Socorro, and Miguel kept reminding every five minutes that they had helped. Luisa was asking him where he had learned to bake and then listened carefully with a smile on her gave when he talked about the bakery and Cass. Hiro definitely spoke more than the previous nights.

   However, unlike yesterday, most of the Rivera children had homework so there couldn't be another movie night. After everyone was done eating Hiro helped Luisa and Abuela Elena with the dishes despite their protests while the twins and Miguel complained about homework. The complaining stopped once Elena chased them away with the broom and turned into shouts if terror. Hiro didn't bother to hide his laughter, considering it the universe's way of balancing out the events from that afternoon. He feigned innocence when Miguel glared at him from over his shoulder.

    Socorro, who had immediately wanted to help with dishes once Hiro said that he was going to, giggled as well as she carefully dried a cup. She passed it to her mom to put away and Hiro gave the little girl a high five and a 'Good job!' in return. Socorro laughed again as the exchange had left her hands sudsy with bubbles.

    Carmen and Gloria were still at the kitchen table gossiping, and the rest of the family, Enrique, Franco, Berto, and Abel were tidying up the workshop in preparation for tomorrow, leaving the house itself uncharacteristically quiet. Hiro would usually hum when he did chores with Aunt Cass but he didn't know if that would be welcome or not. So instead he was running through the numerous files of blueprints that he had stored away in his head.

 _"Gracias otra vez por ayudar."_ Luisa commented. 'Thank you again for helping.'

 _"Está bien."_ Hiro replied, shrugging it off. 'It's fine.'

    Coco tugged on his shorts. _"¿Podemos hacer otro pastel mañana?"_ She pleaded. _"¿Por favooooor?"_ 'Can we make another cake tomorrow? Pleeeeaaase?'

    Hiro handed her another dish to dry and wiped his hands off on his shorts before going to his translator. _"Tenemos que ver, puede ser que sí, pero si no podemos encontrar algo diferente para hacer."_ He settled for a middle answer, not a definite yes or no. 'We'll see, maybe we will, but if not then we can find something different to do.' He set the translator back on the counter, propped up so he could read what Luisa and Coco were saying.

    She was perfectly content with that answer and beamed. Hiro returned the smile and began washing the next plate.

  _"¿Tu no tenies ningun hermano menor verda?"_ Luisa asked, putting away the next dried dish. 'You don't have any younger siblings right?'

 _"No,"_ he shook his head _"¿Porque?"_

    _"Ah, solo es que tú eres muy bueno con los niños, como tu podrías hacer el pastel con ellos y como Coco te adora."_ She replied. 'Oh, it’s just that you're really good with kids, how you were able to make a cake with them and how Coco adores you.'

    Coco didn't even deny it and hugged Hiro's side. _"¡Hiro es mi mejor amigo!"_ She stated firmly. 'Hiro is my best friend!'

    Hiro huffed out a laugh and resisted the urge to ruffle the girl's hair since his hands were wet. It had only been three days so far and he already wanted to smuggle her in a suitcase with him when he had to leave.

    Luisa and Hiro continued their talk with some remarks from Socorro here and there as the three of them worked. Elena checked up on them after a bit but then went off to tidy up some other part of the house since they had the kitchen under control. Of course not before pinching Hiro's cheeks and telling him what a good boy he was for helping. Soon the dishes were done and Luisa was on to the next that has to be done, Coco tagging along with her. Which left Hiro alone in the living room with Dante, flipping through TV channels. Most of them were in Spanish and soon he discovered Tele Novelas and burst out laughing at the exaggerated acting even if he couldn't tell exactly what they were saying.

      But he got bored fairly quickly. After the non-stop noise and chatter and being surrounded by people the silence wasn't as welcome as he would have expected it to be. Funny, he had been wanting peace and quiet for a while and now that he had it, it just felt wrong. Dante, as if magically sensing these thoughts, looked up at him with a curious whine before getting up and trotting out of the living room and down the hall. Hiro hesitated for a moment but sighed and followed the mutt. Maybe he would end up leading Hiro to an adventure.

    The dog was seated in front of Miguel's room when Hiro found him. The dog made a motion at the door with his head and Hiro quirked an eyebrow. Did Dante want to go into the room? He reached for the door handle but froze as he heard Miguel speaking.

 _"Y ese si llama la...¡clavícula!"_ Miguel exclaimed, clearly pleased with himself. 'And that's called the...clavicle!'

  _"Eso es correcto, bien hecho. ¿Y este se llama?"_ Baymax said. 'That is correct, good job. And this one is called?'

    Hiro smirked to himself before quietly turning the handle, opening the door a smidge before making a fake gun with his hands and kicked the door the rest of the way open. "Freeze! This is a bust!"

      Nothing Hiro had ever seen was better than Miguel jumping a foot in the air and almost falling out of his chair at the intrusion.

 _"¡Cabrón! ¡No hagas eso!"_ Miguel hissed, throwing a notebook at him. Hiro easily dodged it and Dante caught it like a frisbee before bringing it back to his Soul. Hiro didn't have the translator out yet but based off of the tone, he could guess what Miguel had whisper shouted at him.

    'Motherfucker! Don't do that!'

    Hiro paused to type but had an answer soon enough. _"¿Qué haces con Baymax?"_ He asked, arms folded over his chest. 'What are you doing with Baymax?'

    The initial heart attack had worn off and Miguel's eyes for comically wide as he realized that he had been caught. He held up his hands. _"Yo solo estaba estudiando para mi examen de Salud."_ He explained. 'I was only studying for my health test.'

      It now clicked in Hiro's head what was different about Baymax. The robot currently has a diagram of the human skeleton displayed on his chest and had one bone lit up, waiting for Miguel to name it. Hiro had used that program before when he was doing presentations for grade school students.

      Hiro raised an eyebrow and typed out his response. _"¿Y necesitabas Baymax para eso?"_ He deadpanned. 'And you needed Baymax for that?'

 _"Si tu tenías el chance de estudiar con un robot en vez de usar su libreta, ¿no lo harías?"_ Miguel pointed out. 'If you had the chance to study with a robot instead of using your notebook wouldn't you?'

    Hiro...couldn't argue with that. He sighed and closed the door behind him, he crossed the room and sat on the air mattress. _"Solo...solo pides permiso la próxima vez."_ He sighed, rummaging through his bag and pulling out his computer to go through some sequence programming for Nest as well as fix up the translator a bit. 'Just...just ask for permission next time.'

    Miguel's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "Wa- _¿Espera que? ¿No me vas a mirar mal o tirarme con algo o discutir?_ " He asked, clearly surprised. Baymax was quiet as he waited for instructions on what to do next.

  'Wa- Wait what? You're not going to give me the evil eye or throw something at me or argue?'

    Hiro snorted when he read the translator and was still giving a little half smile as he clacked on the keys. " _Lo que dijiste tiene sentido_ ,” He shrugged. " _Y como quiera, argumentando no va a hacer nada porque como tu activaste a Baymax, solamente tú puedes desactivarlo."_

    'What you said makes sense. And anyway, arguing won't do anything because since you activated him only you can deactivate him.'

    Miguel blinked. This was a trap wasn't it? He looked over at Dante who was busy licking at Baymax's skeleton diagram.

   The robot in turn patted his head, unsure of what else to do. He was used to Mochi. Mochi never moved so quickly or licked him, which would cause for him to have to de-contaminate himself later. Although sometimes the cat would accidentally unleash his claws when he was still on him. Then Baymax would need tape. Or used to, his 'skin' was thicker now thanks to a compound that Hiro and Honey Lemon had worked on, but it was still plenty squishy and huggable. It was important that he remained huggable. Baymax likes hugs.

 _"Gracias..."_ Miguel answered a bit too late as Hiro was now already invested in his programming and merely gave a hum in response. Miguel whistled, calling Dante over and the spirit guide stopped slobbering all over Baymax and trotted over, sitting down next to him.

    _"Ese se llama la escápula."_ Miguel said, pointing to the lit up bone.

    _"Eso es correcto, bien hecho."_ Baymax chimed once more.

 

    They fell into a comfortable atmosphere as they worked, Miguel practicing with Baymax and then the robot in turn would praise them. Hiro didn't complain about the noise, although he did put in his headphones after a while. And even then he had one bud out. Health class was the only class he had work for thankfully with the rest he had to study for and the diagram he had to fill out. Using Baymax really helped because Miguel was more of a visually learned than anything, it was how he learned how to play guitar after all (as well as practicing regularly but still), and mimicking the movements he saw on TV. So the diagram that Baymax had helped tremendously.

    Plus, and Miguel knew that this was silly, he really liked seeing skeletons. He had never even known half of his ancestors from the Land of the Dead when they were alive, but it didn't change how much he admired and missed them now. Sure, on Dia de Muertos Dante and Pepita would always give him hints as to where the others were and then he would slip away and talk to empty spaces but he couldn't hear what they were saying back. Although he hadn't seen Pepita around in a while. But while he couldn't hear them, he could feel them in a way, their happiness at seeing him and each one has a sort of different feeling, Hector - or who he imagined was Hector had a bright, warm energy while Imelda was a more graceful and collected one, but still lovely nonetheless. So yeah, he was fine with those empathetic exchanges but that didn't mean that he wasn't allowed to always smile a bit whenever he saw a skeleton Halloween decoration or things like that.

    Before either any of them knew it, it was already pretty late into the evening and Miguel did _not_ want a repeat of the zombie state that he had been in today.

 _"Oye, Hiro."_ Miguel said. He had called somewhat quietly so he wouldn't startle Hiro but the gringo still jumped a bit regardless. Miguel made a gesture as if he was signalling to a wrist watch. _"Ya es hora de acostarse."_ 'It's already time for us to go to sleep.'

    Hiro blinked a few times as if coming out of a daze, he often got into a trancelike state when he got really into the programming so his brain would have to do a little reboot once he stopped staring at a screen or whatever he was working on. He hadn't been working on any simulations with Nest, instead he had been working out equations as to which ones he would try next. He knew that there was something that he was missing, something probably incredibly stupid, something that when he realized what it was he was going to smack his head against the wall over for not figuring it out sooner. Miguel waited as Hiro restarted. Hiro looked at the clock in the corner of the computer screen, checked it twice to be sure, and sighed.

      "Just- give me a minute, I almost got this." Hiro groaned, running a hand over his face in thinly veiled frustration.

    Miguel looked over at Baymax who was watching Hiro curiously. Hiro sensed the robot's gaze and groaned again. "Baymax don't -"

    "Scan complete." Baymax cut in. "Hiro, your heart rate and neurological patterns are showing that you are stressed, and frustrated, as well as experiencing a bad headache, I recommend that you turn the computer off, drink some water and go to sleep."

      Baymax usually didn't give such a simple diagnosis, leaving Hiro to wonder why the nurse would do so now. But one thing was true, his head really was pounding.

    _"Voy a buscar agua."_ Miguel said, knowing that if Baymax left the room then the kids would automatically be on him and the shouting would worsen Hiro's headache. 'I'm going to get water.' _"Regreso ya mismo."_ 'I'll be right back.' He leapt from the chair and left the room with Dante right behind him.

    "Hiro, it would help if you lean against the wall with your head slightly elevated." Baymax suggested.

    Hiro nodded and did as told. God it was too damn hot, it was significantly cooler than it has been during the day, but still, way too hot. He shut down the computer and shoved it back into his bag before going back to his original position of sitting down with his back against the wall and looking up. What the hell was he missing on that stupid program?

    He must have dozed off for a second because he didn't even notice when Miguel had come back into the room and nearly had a heart attack when he opened his eyes and Miguel was inches away from his face, causing for him to jump and their foreheads to smack together in a way that had both of them hissing in pain and clutching their heads.

    "On a scale of one to ten; _En una escala del uno al diez_ ," Baymax began, using both languages to suite both of his patients.

    "Zero!" _"¡Cero!"_ They both hissed simultaneously.

  Miguel shook it off first and handed Hiro the water bottle that he had retrieved, as well as some pain relievers. _"Lo siento."_ He apologized before chuckling _"Tenemos que dejar de hacer esto."_ ‘I’m sorry. We need to stop doing that.’

    Hiro, while not knowing exactly what Miguel had said, nodded in agreement before downing the medicine and emptying half of the water bottle. _"Gracias."_ He sighed, before flopping face first into the air mattress.

    Miguel erupted into laughter, but tried to keep it down for the sake of Hiro's headache. Hiro looked up at him, lips quirked in half a smile and he signalled to the light.

 _"Aye, tan mandón."_ Miguel sighed theatrically, shaking his head, getting up and flicking the light off. _"Ningún 'Ah Miguel tú eres mi héroe' ni nada hace. Solamente un 'gracias, ahora apaga la luz'. ¿Dónde se fue la caballerosidad?"_ Hiro, now with the translator, read the screen and snorted before breaking down into laughter.

  'Aye, so bossy. No 'Oh Miguel, you're my hero' or anything like that. Just a 'thanks, now turn off the light. Where did chivalry go?'

 _"Buenas noches Baymax, estoy satisfecho con mi cuidado."_ Miguel said, totally not smiling at how he had gotten Hiro to laugh. 'Good night Baymax, I am satisfied with my care.'

 _"Buenas noches Miguel y Dante,"_ Baymax replied, stepping into his charge port. "Good night Hiro." he shrunk down.

    "Night Baymax." Hiro yawned, shutting his eyes. "Night Miguel and Dante." He added after a second.

 _"Buenas noches Hiro."_ Miguel returned with slight surprise. Dante was waiting him on the bed and wagging his tail. Miguel clambered into bed and shut his eyes.

      While Hiro was softly snoring minutes later, sleep didn't come quite so easily to Miguel because there was something that kept bothering him. Something that Paola had said earlier. Miguel tried batting the thought out of his head but it just kept popping in. He groaned silently in frustration and finally gave in.

    He got out of bed and tiptoed over to the desk where he had left his phone and turned it on. It took a few moments to turn on and load, and a few more seconds to open browser. Miguel went back to the bed, phone in hand and sat down criss cross applesauce style, staring at the search bar. Finally, he just went Fuck it, and types in the search bar 'Hiro Hamada' and clicked images.

      It totally wasn't weird or anything to be looking up photos of the person sleeping right there next to him, total wasn't weird at all. Okay it was pretty fucking weird, and Miguel knew it but he had to know why the hell the girls- particularly Paola kept talking about Hiro and his photos.

    Some were just ones that people on the street had taken of him, tourists no less, Hiro wasn't even looking at the camera at these. There some others of Hiro in his superhero outfit and okay- yeah he looked pretty good in purple, Miguel would give him that and holy hell Baymax looked awesome! **Was he fucking flying in this one?** In these superhero shots Hiro was concentrated and had the look of a man on a mission. There were a handful of one's that looked like it had been he and his friends who had uploaded them, pictures of them at science fairs or doing experiments and goofing off. But the majority of the pictures were from magazine covers of clippings from news articles and Miguel immediately knew something was off about those.

    At first he thought it was because Hiro actually had his hair brushed, but no that wasn't it. Maybe it was because he was looking right at the camera? Then it hit him and he didn't know how he felt about noticing such a small detail. The smile. The smile was all wrong. Yeah, Miguel had only known Hiro for three days but it was enough to know that the smile that he had on those covers wasn't a sincere one. It was forced for the camera. He didn't know how to explain it, but it just felt off.

      He clicked the 'more like this' option and more professionally taken photos popped up. When Hiro wasn't aware of the camera he was more at ease, when he was aware of it he was undoubtedly more stiff and awkward. Hell even that cocky smile he gave when Miguel got in trouble looked more sincere than these. One of the photos was a screenshot from an interview and Miguel chewed his lip, curiosity picking at him. He got up once more and got his headphones, making sure that they were soundly in his ears before he clicked the interview link. It was about a year old going by the date on it.

      Okay. Hiro definitely looked good in purple. For the interview he had gone classier than he always dressed with black dress pants, a dark grey t-shirt and a purple blazer, although he did have sneakers on instead of formal shoes. The interviewer, a woman in her mind twenties by the looks of it, started with the whole 'Great to have you on our show' and all that before getting into the questions.

    "So Hiro, how did you get to where you are now? You entered the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology at only fourteen and since then have continued to amaze the public with your inventions." A pretty standard question to start off with.

    "Well uh I've always liked inventing, fiddling with little things around the house and I got into bo- uh robotics pretty early on." He kept fiddling with the end of his hair, shorter back then like he had gotten a haircut and was trying to grow it out. "Making things was always a good outlet and I thought of it as a hobby so turning it into a profession wasn't that big of a transition. Although my brother was the one who pushed me to go to the school, and then my friends are the ones who kept me going."

    "Right, and your friends make up the team Big Hero 6. What's that like? Being a superhero?" The woman continued.

    "Well we're not super heroes, at least that's not how I see it. You know we're just doing what we can in the way that we can. At least that's the cliché side of me answering, the other side thinks that it's freaking amazing!" Hiro exclaimed, causing the audience to laugh a bit. Miguel's face split into a grin as well.

    Next to that video in the suggestions bar it showed that the same studio had interviewed the other members of the team too, as well as the group as a whole.

    The interview continued with more questions some professional, some more personal, but even with all of the fidgeting or quirks that Hiro had he still had a look of confidence. Awkward confidence, the kind that came from someone who knew what they were doing but wanted to present it in a way without seeming like a jerk. It wasn’t the usual somewhat cocky attitude that he had seen from Hiro during the past few days. Probably due to all the cameras on him but still. This was more like when Miguel had caught him with his hair up in bows or covered in flour, awkward but trying to not show it. It was kind of cute to be perfectly honest. Hiro laughed at something the woman had said, smile wide and the slight gap he had on his teeth on full display.

     Definitely cute.

    Yeah, no. He turned off the phone and yanked the headphones out of his ears very ungracefully and put them under his pillow so Dante wouldn't chew on them. Miguel could practically see Anthony’s smug look. He had just gone to look for pictures to see what the big deal was, possibly find an embarrassing one if he was lucky. Watching interviews and listening carefully as Hiro answered the questions and smiled and laughed hadn't been part of the plan.

    He threw the blanket over his head, earning a grumble from Dante, and scrunched his eyes shut and forced himself to go to sleep. But he still couldn't help but go back to thinking that Hiro looked like he was enjoying himself here more than he did in those stupid magazine covers.

    Stupid Chinchilla.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BWAHAHAHAHAA THERE WAS A REASON WHY I USED 'BIZCOCHO' SPECIFICALLY IN THE FIRST CHAPTER!!!   
> Miguel: "So what'd you do today?" Hiro: "I decided to make a pussy." Essentially that's what he said XD. I don't know if that's funnier to me because I know Spanish but come on, that's pretty fucking hilarious. Also, I started taking Reposteria, cooking class so the teacher is explaining how to make cakes and I'm pretty much dying cause he's explaining how to make moist cakes and pfffffffttt he's talking in Spanish so I'm dying and my friends ask me what the fuck is wrong with me and I explain and now none of us can use the word Bizcocho without dying which makes class and homework leave us CRYING with laughter.   
> I don't add characters for the hell of it. Paola will return 3:) How far into lying will Miguel go?   
> My highschool uses uniforms...I'm bitter about it.   
> So Hiro and Miguel have gone from: 'Fuck you' to 'All right...you're not a complete douche?' to '...How the fuck do I interact with you? What is words? Someone help me relate to this human? No? Ugh, fine, I'll try to do it myself.'   
> OH AND I ALMOST MADE A HUGE MISTAKE!!! I NEARLY WROTE 'ACOSTARNOS' INSTEAD OF 'ACOSTARSE' Which would have made the sentence say 'It's time to to sleep together (in an adult sense)' rather than 'It's time to sleep'. (Maybe not a mistake tho~ *insert Lenny face here*)


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